Order of the Phoenix: War of the Revelation
by greymage7
Summary: The veil of secrecy has fallen regarding the existence of magic and magickind; Muggles and wizards are engaged in a grueling war of attrition. Harry Potter has made some difficult decisions, driving a drift between himself and his long-time friends. As he struggles with how best to save wizardkind, a Muggle boy finds himself attending Hogwarts and must find a way to get out alive.
1. Chapter 1 - War

A/N: This story is intended as an in-canon sequel to the original novels, starring new and old heroes and a lot of new villains. Details of the Harry Potter universe and magic itself will be expanded to breathe new life to the world we know. This story will stick mostly to the original themes of Harry Potter (Love, Prejudice, Death, etc.) but with a more mature lens. The ball takes a while to get rolling, but when it does, it will feature crazy schemes, moral quandaries, thrilling action, and most importantly: romance and drama that is integrated to the core of the story. I highly recommend reading to the end of Chapter 3 to get a sense of the true direction of the plot; Chapter 1 is more of a prologue.

Chapter 1 – War

The night sky was a solid black canvas behind the military air base. The barracks, storehouses and other buildings were lit with glaring yellow lights; the sentries stationed in front of them looked half-glowing, each with a night vision and thermal imaging scope perched over one eye. A team of six men passed by them, sticking to the shadows on the other side of the road. They would have been seen regardless if not for the magic spells cast over them; one to make their bodies take the colour and texture of the bushes behind them, and another to mask the heat of their bodies.

Their leader moved silently under the shadows, taking the lead a yard ahead of his team. Unlike the others, he draped a cloak over his shoulders that granted him true invisibility; he could move swiftly without betraying his silhouette.

He and his team drew near a pair of guards standing before a large hangar. He signalled his team to stay back, and approached the guards. Their eyes were peeled through their scopes for the outline of a camouflaged wizard, but his true invisibility let him stalk right beside them. He pulled his wand from the sleeve of his robes.

' _Stupefy,'_ A streak of red light struck the first guard and he dropped unconscious to the ground. The second guard raised his rifle in alarm, but the invisible wizard fired a second streak of red light and knocked him out as well. The invisible wizard stood straight and pulled something else from his sleeve: a flat, round, inch-thick disc.

He planted the disc against the hangar door and stepped a several feet aside. With a flick of his wand, the Vanish Bomb detonated; a perfectly circular hole carved into the hangar door, with a smooth crater of earth at its base. The wizard signalled to his team, and they filed into the hangar.

As the wizards entered the unlit space, they raised their wands and spoke _"Lumos" –_ their tip of their wands sparked with white light that was bright but not glaring – the wizards spread out across the darkness and began planting Vanish Bombs on every fighter jet inside. Every few seconds a bomb detonated and silently consumed a plane into nothingness.

"Harry," called out one of the invisible wizard's men near the hangar entrance. "Where are you?"

The invisible wizard pulled off his invisibility cloak and faced his fellow Auror. "Tribett. What is it?"

"You didn't finish off those two guards," Harry couldn't tell how Tribett looked as he was Disillusioned, but he sounded annoyed.

"It wasn't necessary. They're out for at least thirty minutes,"

"Well I took care of it. I'm not gambling with other people's lives," His subordinate headed towards the far end of the hangar to join the others in setting Vanish Bombs. Harry held up the rear, following him silently.

Suddenly the hangar filled with a high-pitched, relentless beeping, stabbing into his ears like a giant nail gun. Harry and Aurors clamped their ears shut, but the sheer force of the sound waves was making his eyes sting and throwing his brain inside out.

"What is this – a sonic attack?!" yelled another one of his Aurors. None of them, Harry included, had ever encountered such an attack from their enemy. All the Aurors' Disillusionment Charms broke, rendering them visible – the immense migraine induced by the noise made it impossible to maintain enchantments over themselves.

Harry raised his lit wand and focused a beam of light up along the high walls. Attached near the ceiling were flat, black panels angled down at them, blasting that searing noise. Harry fired a Reductor Spell at one of them – the device burst into pieces and the noise became marginally softer.

The coin-sized mirror strapped to his wrist heated up like a hot iron – a warning of closing enemies. An instant later, the hangar exploded in a cacophony of sounds and light – rattling gunfire, flashing muzzles, and a metal-like _ting_ as bullets bounced off the Aurors' grey robes. Their standard Auror robes were each enchanted with a Barrier Charm; an invisible layer of energy wrapped around each Auror like a coating and flashed light blue against every colliding bullet. They rendered all attacks harmless, but they would only last seconds under sustained fire.

"Wall! Seal them out!" shouted Harry.

Each Auror pointed their wands to the ground and a thick wall of concrete rose where they pointed, each wall over twenty feet high. With every swing of their wands the Aurors erected walls between themselves and the soldiers until the massive width of the hangar was fully sealed. Harry then shone his lit wand to the ceiling – the sound-blasting speakers lined every dozen feet along the top of the walls, far too many for them to take out in time.

"Retreat!" Harry commanded. The Aurors ran for the opposite end of the hangar. Harry cast a Soundproof Charm around his head – he saw his Aurors spinning their wands over their own heads, doing the same. All sound disappeared – Harry was now functionally deaf. He couldn't hear the sonic weapons above him, or the gunfire behind him, or his Aurors in front of him.

When his Aurors suddenly stopped, Harry didn't understand why, until he saw the spark of several bullets bouncing off his chest. More soldiers had entered from the other end of the hangar. His Aurors began to fight them off, but if they didn't break through quickly, they will soon be sandwiched.

A low rumble at Harry's feet told him that the soldiers behind them had blasted through their wall. As he turned around, a hail of bullets pelted him, nearly shaving off his Barrier. Harry pointed his wand upwards – the light at the tip of his wand exploded into a blinding flash. The gunfire halted, the soldiers blinded by the bright light through their night vision scopes.

Harry began his counterattack – from his still-lit wand he fired red beams of light in rapid succession – his Stunning Spells flew straight to the soldiers' heads, knocking them unconscious before they hit the ground. Before the first man recovered Harry had already taken out half of them. Some of them dived for cover behind a jet refueler or other equipment – Harry simply arced his spell to hit them from the side. One by one, he picked them off while barely sustaining any fire.

Out of the corner of Harry's eye, he caught movement. He looked down and saw a grenade rolling at his feet. He only need a second to fling it away with his wand, but it was too late – the blast shattered his Barrier and knocked him on his back. His vision all black, body shredded by steel fragments, he heard footsteps approach and then felt bullets sink into him – two in the chest, and one through his head. He was dead.

* * *

They had the wizards outnumbered three to one, but it was still too close for comfort. Five of Jake's team was down, from a second of weakness against a single wizard. Using his grenade worked, but it was a risky move considering that wizards usually flicked them right back.

Now recovered from the blinding flash, Jake's team pushed forward to engage the remaining wizards. The wizards had managed to push out of the hangar, and were currently engaging every guard that responded to the alert. One wizard transformed one soldier's rifle into a grenade and killed two; another wizard set soldiers on fire and impaled them with conjured spears. They had downed three times their number but were slowly being overwhelmed by reinforcements.

Jake's team took cover by the hangar door and fired on one wizard in the back; it seemed to take an eternity to break through his Barrier and take him down. Another wizard retaliated with green jets of light that flew with a howl of wind; two of Jake's team dropped lifelessly upon being hit. One wizard started raising earthen walls from the ground to provide cover – reinforcements brought in rocket launchers and blew them apart. One by one the wizards were finally being brought down, but the cost was too much – including Jake's team at the hangar, only six guards remained.

Jake heard movement behind him and turned – no, that's impossible – he shot him in the head! The wizard, crawling along the floor, pointed his wand at him and shouted.

" _Imperio!_ "

* * *

When the world returned to Harry, the first thing he saw was his blood spattered on his cracked glasses. Wordlessly, he flicked his wand and they were clean and restored. His shredded legs were still regenerating, so he turned over on his chest to face the hangar exit. His Aurors were gunned down, laying across the road outside. There was only one way to save them –

" _Imperio!_ "

The soldier by the hangar door seized up; the hands grasping his rifle shook violently as he fought against Harry's spell with all his might. But he could not overcome the raw power of the Elder Wand. His hands stopped shaking, and he smoothly, sharply, turned to the soldier beside him and fired. Two shots, one in the chest and one in the head.

The soldier across the hangar turned at the sound of the gunfire. "Jake, what are you doing?!"

He aimed to the yelling soldier and shot him, too. He then advanced out of the hangar to the three remaining soldiers, who were approaching the Aurors to execute them. He opened fire and killed them.

When he was done, the soldier slowly lowered his rifle, hands shaking. Harry stood up on his regenerated legs and ran to the nearest Auror.

Tribett's whole body was riddled with wounds, but thankfully, no headshot. With immediate healing, he will able to recover.

"Can you Disapparate?" Harry asked. The shrieking of the sonic weapons behind them was distant now, not able to interfere with the high concentration needed for them to teleport to safety.

"Tch. What do you think?" Tribett gingerly twirled his wand in the air and vanished with a faint cracking sound. A few more of Harry's Aurors managed to retreat on their own, finally recovering enough from their sound-induced migraine to Disapparate. Those that were unconscious or in too much pain, Harry cast the Disapparition Spell on them, sending them to medical attention. Thankfully, none of them were fatally wounded.

After evacuating his last Auror, Harry walked up to the soldier he dominated, pointed his blood-stained wand at him, and ordered him to kill himself.

The soldier turned the barrel of his rifle to the underside of his chin. His hands were shaking more violently than ever, and tears were rolling freely down his cheeks. He stared straight into Harry, breathing heavily through clenched teeth. In the soldier's dark eyes, Harry saw a shattered man. Death would be a kindness.

With an ear-ringing din, a rain of bullets fell upon Harry's regenerated Barrier. Reinforcement soldiers were closing in from all sides. The sudden attack made him lose focus, breaking his control over the last soldier. The soldier pointed his rifle at him and opened fire, not caring about the danger of ricochet. Just as his Barrier gave way, Harry turned on the spot and Disapparated. He landed in the middle of the Entrance Lobby of the Ministry of Magic.

He did not Disapparate properly; only his head, right hand and torso made it, but it was enough for him to regenerate on the correct side. He was also shot full of bullets, but he couldn't feel them. He also couldn't feel what should be the excruciating pain of his bones and flesh regrowing; all that filled his mind were the bodies of the soldiers strewn across the camp, and the face of the soldier he dominated, staring at him like he was…like he was a monster.

* * *

Devon, England was once a beautiful county. It was covered in lush, green farmlands and rustic villages, dotted with quaint, cobblestone houses that Jake didn't think existed anymore. But if he looked out one of the tiny bulletproof windows of the APC, he would not see that Devon. The countryside would be pockmarked with bomb craters, so thoroughly that the craters overlapped, almost no green to be seen around the blasted loose soil.

It has been thirteen months and two weeks since the war began in the United Kingdom. The earliest clear hostilities between humans and wizards started a couple weeks earlier in one African country, followed quickly by the rest of the continent. For a week, the media didn't understand who the belligerents were, until July 9th, 2021, when the Russian government enlightened the world to the existence of magic and ordered the capture and execution of the Russian Ministry of Magic. The Russian Cabinet had broken out of domination by the Russian Ministry, and they intercepted communications that corroborated the intelligence of other countries; it indicated clearly that the International Confederation of Wizards had used mind-altering magic to control world leaders and key figures in business and media. After that, the world was on fire.

The Russian Ministry annihilated the Kremlin and was currently engaged in endless skirmishes against the Russian military. The Chinese government currently had the Chinese Ministry on the run across its vast countryside, but suffers constant guerrilla attacks on its military bases. In the Middle East was anarchy, with dozens of groups of humans and wizards warring against a dozen other groups of humans and wizards. The U.S. government forced MACUSA – the Magical Congress of the United States of America – to surrender six months ago, and the military was currently supporting its allies to defeat their respective wizard governments.

Until the war, wizards lived in secret among humans in small enclaves. When the war started, wizards either left their homes or occupied the town or village they lived in. They concealed these wizard strongholds with illusions and mental magic. However, concealment did not make these places invulnerable, and their concealment magic could be dispelled by carpet bombing if one could identify their general location. Devon was home to a significant network of wizard villages, and Jake and his team were now approaching one such village.

In the cramped, dimly lit space of the APC, Jake's team engaged in their pre-battle chatter, taking bets, psyching each other up. As a captain and squadron leader, it should be his job as well, but Jake was never a great speaker.

"Hey, why can't we ride this thing straight to our target?" asked Andy aloud.

"Same reason we're not getting tank support," Jake answered. "Tanks on a street are just giant targets waiting to be transfigured into teapots. You want to be in a teapot?"

"No, sir,"

"Wouldn't the teapot just shatter against us?"

"That sounds bad. Trolls, gargoyles and wizards I can handle, but what if the teapot cuts my face?"

"You'll finally look good enough to date a troll,"

Their APC stopped at the threshold of the village. Jake searched for some final words to give before moving out.

"Remember, cover doesn't last long against wizards. Keep moving and keep shooting. Let's move out. Hooah!"

"Hooah!"

Jake opened the rear door and his team of Delta Force operators moved out. They split into three teams of three and fanned out to secure their current position. Jake joined the first team and scanned the nearby buildings for threats.

The wizard village of Godric's Hollow was half destroyed. The village had a magical barrier surrounding it that prevented entry and attacks. When bombers broke through the barrier, some excess bombs fell through and levelled the buildings. Such a thing was unavoidable as the strength of every magical barrier was different. Most of the buildings, rows of gable-roofed residences, were half-blown to rubble, the street littered with shattered wood and broken bricks. In between some destroyed buildings were lots that were completely empty – those belonged to wizards that managed to evacuate their entire house via teleportation magic. All the wizards that lived in this village should have evacuated long before the bombs started dropping. Hopefully no one in this village was too stubborn to leave their home.

The goal wasn't to kill wizards. It was to force the British Ministry to surrender and have them order all wizards to surrender their wands to the British government. Wizards needed their wands to cast nearly all magic – the dangers they were capable of with them were simply too great to go unregulated. This was the only way to ensure safety for all.

Their current mission was to search and rescue a CIA undercover operative, then join the main force that was securing the village. Jake looked down at his commander's digital assistant for the location of their target. The screen of his blocky handheld computer showed a satellite image of Godric's Hollow. A blinking dot showed the current position of the agent's cell phone by GPS, inside a red-roofed house down a street to the northwest. No change in position from when they deployed from base – not a good sign.

"Let's go," Jake's team took the lead, with the other two teams covering them from either flank. In the distance down another street, Jake could see U.S. infantry breaking down doors, clearing what buildings were still standing. They reached the red-roofed house without incident. The back half was blown apart by the bombing; the rest of the house looked ready to collapse from a strong breeze.

"Looks like a trap," said Andy.

"It probably is," replied Jake. "Earplugs on in case of mandrakes,"

After putting on their earplugs, Jake and his team climbed up the porch. The dusty front window showed that the room was empty; all the same, they stacked up against the front door. Jake touched the hilt of his sheathed cold iron survival knife. It was hot to the touch; there was definitely a lot of magic nearby. On Jake's silent count, they burst in.

It was an ordinary sitting room, dark blue wallpaper, mostly wooden furniture. Everything was too neat and in-place for it to have recently suffered an aerial bombing. There was a single cell phone lying on the ground in the middle of the room.

The front door swung closed the moment the last of Jake's team entered. Then a cloud of sawdust shook off from the corners of the ceiling. The ceiling started lowering on them, about an inch per second.

Benjamin kicked on the front door, but the simple thin wood did not give way. He fired his weapon on the bolts and hinges, but the bullets bounced off the wooden door frame like it was tank armour. "Fuck! It's a trap!"

"Checkmate 1; the building is a trap. Checkmate 2 and 3, get us out of here!" Carlos yelled into his radio.

Jake could hear the sound of gunfire from the radio. "Checkmate 2, we're both ambushed! Five wizard militia, all around!"

Jake's team continued ramming at the front door and window, with no effect. Jake strode forward and picked up the cell phone. It was perfectly clean – not even the smallest speck of dust or smudge on its surface.

"Jake, what are you doing?" yelled Andy.

"Shut up, I'm thinking," The phone and the entire room was spotless, so it must have recently been cleaned with a stack of cleaning spells. The only reason for that would be to clean up the trap after killing its victims. If so, there must be a charm that detects when there is no more life in the room so the trap can reset. Autonomous spells are usually contained in an artefact, and it had to be somewhere in the room, as well flat enough to survive the trap.

Jake looked down at the floor. Under his feet was a large red rug. Jake got off the rug and lifted it – underneath it was a single photo. Jake picked it up; it was, most likely, the photo of this house's family, a middle-aged couple and their young daughter. Like all wizard photographs, it moved in a continuous loop; the family shifted slightly in place, beaming up at Jake.

The ceiling was a few inches away from his helmet. If Jake destroyed the photo here, it would seal his and his team's fate. Instead he took the photo to the far end of the room, as far from the front door as possible, and placed it there on the ground. He ran back to his team with the ceiling pressing on his helmet.

It worked: the ceiling started to slow rise back up. They were now out of the artefact's detection range, so the trap was assuming they were dead and resetting.

"When the ceiling's back up, get out and engage!" Jake shouted. The moment the ceiling stopped moving, the strengthening charm on the house walls lifted. Benjamin kicked open the door and all of them charged out – into the middle of a battle with the wizard militia.

Two of Jake's second team were firing from the side of the house, with the third member lying wounded behind the stump of a tree.

Jake spotted silhouettes of blurriness on the street – Disillusioned wizards, appearing camouflaged against the street. Jake opened fire; the camouflaging charms broke and their bullets ricocheted off the Barrier Charms of two revealed wizards.

Jake's team focused their fire on the nearest wizard. Their rain of fire tore through his Barrier and peppered his body. The other wizard spun on the spot and Disapparated before his Barrier gave way as well.

"Keep moving!" Jake yelled at both teams and jumped off the porch. Suddenly, a roaring ball of fire, glowing orange materialized on top of the porch. It dropped and exploded in an enormous blaze, spitting out smaller fireballs in all directions. Jake and his men were flung several feet by the blast.

After that came the mandrakes. Flower pots materialized out of the air and smashed on the ground, the nearest one just a foot from Jake's face. Squirming in the mound of dirt spilled from the pot, was a brown root the size of a baby, but shaped like a wrinkled old man. It flailed its tiny arms and screamed – immediately Jake's brain felt like it was crushing into itself. If he hadn't been wearing earplugs, he would have died instantly. Jake rose off the ground and stomped the mandrake's face. His vision swaying, he and his soldiers shot down the other mandrakes before their combined screaming could knock them unconscious. When the street fell silent, Jake pulled off his earplugs and breathed deeply, trying to steady his mind.

"Jake, are you crazy? Put them back on! What if there's more?" cried Carlos.

Jake heard a soft, nearly inaudible 'crack' sound from behind and above him – the unmistakable sound of an Apparating wizard. Jake swerved around and fired at the roof of the trap building. The wizard lost concentration and his spell fizzled from his wand. Jake's team joined fire and punched through the wizard's Barrier, killing him.

One more wizard Apparated onto a rooftop, but Jake's troop was ready for him. They split up and fired on him from three different angles – the wizard's Barrier soon broke, but he fell off the roof out of sight. Jake ran to the other side of the building after him.

"Jake, stop!"

He spotted the wizard limping away; he was in too much pain to Disapparate. When the wizard spotted Jake, he pointed his wand at his feet and bounded through the air, trying to make distance. Jake chased after him, onto a different street.

"Drop your wand!" Jake shouted, his rifle aimed at the wizard. Jake didn't want to kill him, but he wasn't going to let him escape either. The wizard paused, then turned around and pointed his wand; Jake's rifle exploded in a shower of shrapnel, and the force knocked him on his back. Shards of metal sliced through his face and neck. One dug into his left eye, blinding him on that side.

Jake raised his bleeding head and saw with his remaining eye the wizard waving his wand, preparing to finish him off. Jake fumbled for his pistol and opened fire just in time – he emptied his magazine into the wizard, and he dropped dead.

His head getting light, his vision growing blurry, Jake forced himself up and knelt over the wizard's body. He dug into the wizard's robes and pulled out a vial of green liquid. He uncorked the vial and downed the potion in one gulp. Immediately he could feel his bleeding stop as the blood clotted over his wounds. It would take a more advanced potion for his eye to regenerate, though.

A hissing sound loomed from behind him, growing steadily louder. Jake didn't turn back – he stood up and ran forward as fast as he possibly could down the length of the street.

A gigantic serpentine shadow covered Jake and grew larger and taller, swaying left and right. It was going to strike any second. Jake saw the monstrous shadow rear back – he leapt to the side just as it lunged. The ground shook and cracked as the giant serpent smashed into the concrete. Jake kept running and rammed his way through the door of the nearest house.

The basilisk's head broke into the house after him, sending splinters of wood bouncing off Jake's back. Jake ran through the sitting room, saw what looked like the basement and rammed through it. He tumbled down the stairs and pushed himself to his feet. There was a second of relative silence, only the sound of hissing from above. Then the basilisk's head smashed through the ceiling, the top of its head right before Jake, its jaws big enough to swallow him whole.

Jake closed his eye shut – one glance into the eyes of a basilisk was instant death. He then unsheathed his cold iron knife and leapt onto the snake's head. He plunged the magic knife into its dark green, armour-like scales – the knife's blade grew hot and sunk deep. The basilisk roared and rose its head high. Jake swung in the air, held only by his grip on the knife. He gripped his boots on the top of the monster's head, and scrambled around his vest for his CDA. Opening his eye, he searched for the right track, and played it at the highest volume possible. It was the crowing of a rooster, barely audible over the basilisk's roars. The crow of the rooster was fatal to the basilisk, but only at point-blank range. Jake brought the CDA close to one of the basilisk's ears – immediately the great monster emitted a scream louder than any other.

The basilisk thrashed its head and whipped its entire body in a frenzy, flattening nearby buildings to rubble. Jake's knife slipped out and he fell several dozen feet to the wooden floor. A wave of cracking bone shot through his body, his head rang inside his helmet, his eye saw only stars. With a final anguished cry, the basilisk's head fell to the ground and it moved no more.

Jake remained lying amongst the debris, mostly because he was exhausted, but also because his spine was broken. The Healing Potion he took earlier wouldn't be enough to heal it fully, but his medic should have a couple more stolen ones.

A minute later, Andy walked up to Jake, sporting some burns in his uniform, but otherwise fine. He gave a low whistle at the dead basilisk.

"Damn. Now I remember why you're in charge,"

Jake started pulling out the rifle fragments that were lodged in his arms and neck. It was quite painful, but the wounds clotted over again quickly. "What about the other wizards?"

"We managed to take them out,"

"The agent?"

"Team three recovered her. She was hiding from the wizards in another building. She helped us take out one of them,"

"How many injured?"

"Five injured, but nothing serious. No casualties,"

Jake breathed a lot easier. Someone came hurrying over the debris of the house, dressed in black wizard robes, but carrying a pistol. She knelt beside him with a horror-struck look.

"Jake, are you okay?" she said, staring at his blood-stained uniform. "Oh God, your eye,"

Jake recognized her voice, as well as her face. "Valerie? _You_ were the agent?" Now he realized she was wearing a black wig. "I didn't recognize you in the mission brief. I thought the agent's name was –"

"Fake identity, obviously," said Valerie. She pulled off her wig to reveal her usual gold blonde hair, trimmed to a short pixie cut with long side-swept bangs. "Are you okay?" She repeated.

"I'm fine. I took a Healing Potion,"

"Oh, good," Valerie sighed in relief. Then she shoved him roughly in the chest.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" she shouted furiously at him. "I saw you. You ran off after that wizard. Did you try to fight him by yourself? Are you crazy?!" She shoved him again. "You don't engage wizards by yourself! You know what 'team' means, captain? Did you skip basic training?"

"I'm sorry," Jake coughed out. "I thought I could catch him,"

"Sir, if I may voice my opinion," said Andy. "I think the lady is right. We're Delta Force. It'll take more than five wizards and a basilisk to kill us. Have more faith in us,"

Andy and Valerie got on either side of Jake and carried his limp body up from under the arms. They met up with the rest of the troop who escorted both Valerie and Jake to the field hospital. Once they were in safe territory, everyone was able to relax.

"Damn, I knew basilisks were big, but damn. I didn't even see it, but I could _feel_ its size!"

"More meat for everyone tonight,"

"You think it tastes better than regular snake?"

"Jake can tell us after he takes first serving,"

Jake cracked a smile. "Sure, but only if you guys roast it first,"

* * *

A day later, and Godric's Hollow was on its way into becoming a forward operating base, with earth-filled gabions and guards being placed around the perimeter. From here, they would be able to strike at the other wizard villages in Devon, and take back any towns and villages the wizards captured. This was in general what the U.S. and U.K. military planned to do all over Britain, until the wizards surrendered.

Jake was able to stagger around on his feet, but his left eye would need another day to become usable again. He hid it under a medical eye patch to spare others the sight of a half-grown eye. He hobbled his way before the ruins of a cottage at the very end of one long street. The cottage appeared to have gone through decades of disuse before it was completely flattened by the bombing; the hedge fence was overgrown, the gate was more rust than iron, and what grass was not under rubble was overrun with tall weeds.

A wooden sign stood beside the gate, and with golden letters it described a significant event in wizarding history:

 _On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,_

 _Lily and James Potter lost their lives._

 _Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever_

 _to have survived the Killing Curse._

 _This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left_

 _in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters_

 _and as a reminder of the violence_

 _that tore apart their family._

What free space not filled with these letters was littered with scribbles, apparently from other wizards. Some were names, some were initials, and some were messages. These messages were words of encouragement. _'Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.' 'If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!' 'Long live Harry Potter.'_ All these vandalisms appeared decades worn, except for one: _'Harry Potter will defeat you.'_

Harry Potter. Head of the Auror Office, the department of the most highly combat-trained wizards in the British Ministry of Magic. A hero of two wizarding wars, who defeated a powerful dark wizard when he was seventeen. He owned three ancient artefacts, called the Deathly Hallows; as long as all three are on his person, he cannot be killed. Wizard newspapers dubbed him the 'The Man Who Lived', 'Master of Death', and the greatest hope of Britain's wizarding community.

 _You're not a hero. You're just a man. A man who made a terrible mistake._ That mistake was not killing Jake when he had the chance. And someday, somewhere, Jake was going to make him pay for it.

Jake didn't hate him because he killed his friends. No, they were at war – he was killing his friends as well. What he hated was that he made _him_ do it. In their last moments, his friends were hurt, confused, wondering why he had betrayed them. He will never forgive Harry Potter for that, as much as he will never forgive himself. So many soldiers have resisted the Imperius Curse – they were able to shoot themselves before hurting their friends – but he couldn't. He betrayed his entire team by not being strong enough to fight the Curse. The least he could do as penance was kill the other man responsible.

"Captain Jake Tanner,"

It was the adjutant to his commanding officer. Jake turned to face him. "Yes?"

"CO would like a word with you. He's in the church,"

Jake hobbled his way back to the town square. In its centre was a stone monument that was blasted in half. It was two pairs of legs, one in trousers and another in a skirt, seated on a bench. The town square had several shops, a post office, a pub and a little church, all in varying states of ruin. The pub was cleared out though, and soldiers were moving in and out, some of them carrying a large roll of basilisk skin, jerry cans labelled 'venom', or a pig-sized block of meat.

Jake entered the church; the sanctuary had a few soldiers seated in the pews, praying. Lieutenant General Anson stood up from the seat nearest to the entrance and approached him.

Jake saluted the Commander of Delta Force. "You wanted to speak to me, general?"

He was a tall, tanned man with balding grey hair. "Yes. How were the interviews?"

Most of Jake's morning had been taken up answering to reporters who wanted to hear details of how he managed to be the first person to slay a basilisk single-handedly, and before it could take any casualties.

"They were okay," Jake couldn't come up with more to say; he wasn't a great speaker. The reporters who interviewed him had to ask many leading questions to get the dramatic story they wanted.

"Good to hear," the general replied. "But that's not why I called you here. Follow me," He led Jake through a side door, a short hallway, and into a small office. It had some ordinary items; a wooden desk, table lamp, and a stack of papers in a letter tray. The human residents of Godric's Hollow used this church before the wizards occupied it, booting the residents out. Thus the desk also had some less-ordinary items; an empty owl cage, rolls of parchment and a round mirror, plate-sized, made of polished black material.

He touched the hilt of his cold iron knife to feel if it was giving off heat. It was slightly warm.

"We already swept the area for magic," said Anson. "There should be no traps or spying artefacts in here," He picked up the black mirror and showed it to him. "Except for this. I took this from Diagon Alley. You know what this is?"

Jake looked into the mirror. Though the reflective material was dark and spotty from age, he could make out his reflection: a twenty-five year-old Caucasian man, one grey-blue eye, and dark brown hair in an inch-tall crew cut. Over the shoulder of his reflection were dark, misty silhouettes drifting about; men in wizard robes holding wands, they filled the space behind him, more than Jake could count.

"It's a Foe-Glass. It's a magical artefact that shows you your perceived enemies, and their image grows clearer the closer they are,"

"That's right. With artefacts like this, the wizards here were able to evacuate the whole village before our planes even got close," Anson put the Foe-Glass down and sat behind the desk. He leaned back in the leather chair with an air of tiredness. "Sit down, Jake," Jake sat opposite him.

"Ten minutes ago, I received news that wizards have occupied another village in Devon, and have already relocated and concealed it. Most likely, those wizards were the previous occupants of this village,"

Jake had expected this news. It was a pattern repeated for thirteen months now in the United Kingdom. It was the same in the U.S. until the CIA managed to infiltrate the base of the Magical Congress, capturing their leaders. It was only with the aid of goblin magic that they were able to thwart the Congress's defensive barriers, concealment charms and warning magic.

The general continued. "We tell the media that we're winning, but it's not exactly true. We're spreading thin across the country, and we're not winning any battles. Any base we have, including this one, can fall any second to a real attacking force, not the five wizards you fought who were disorganized, probably deserters. Wizards can move far more easily than we can, so we're losing more resources than they are in this cat and mouse game,"

"We need to enter wizard villages without triggering their warning magic and capture their leaders swiftly, before they have the chance to Disapparate. The goblins can help us with the first part, but only a few men can penetrate the barriers at a time. So these men have to be capable of fighting wizards in equal or even greater numbers," The general pulled himself straight in his chair, his bearing firm and serious.

"And so, the United States Army is inviting you to join an experimental unit. A unit of soldiers who will willingly infect themselves with lycanthropy,"

Jake's fists tightened.

"Lycanthropy is pretty much exactly how we know it from folklore. Once infected, you will gain the ability to transform into a half-man, half-wolf. You will have increased strength, senses, reflexes, endurance, and regeneration. If you lose an eye, it will regenerate within a minute. Your body will gain an innate resistance to magic; you will take half the impact of most spells. You will gain a strong resistance to mental magic; you will be nearly impossible to control or brainwash,"

"So this was how the CIA managed to overrun MACUSA's base," said Jake. So other units have already been given this offer. His heartrate was steadily rising; it was getting harder to contain his excitement. "Why did it take this long for this to come to Delta Force?"

"There were a few obstacles,"

"Like my father?"

"Yes. In fact I'm likely jumping in hot soup by offering you this behind his back. Also, there was the concern that you were once under the Imperius Curse and may still be under control, though you have already cleared all tests for mental alteration. We're offering this to all of Delta, and reorganizing those who are willing into one squadron. If you accept, you will be commander of that squadron,"

"…I see," Jake began thinking about who in his squadron would be willing to become a werewolf. Because it was more than simply enhanced physical attributes and magic resistance.

"I've told you the benefits – now I must tell you the price of becoming a werewolf," The general leaned forward, his fingers laced over the desk. "You will be more prone to anger, especially as the full moon approaches. And when angered, you will begin to transform. Transform fully, and you will lose all control of yourself, and attack every living thing in sight. On the full moon, you transform fully regardless, and have to be locked overnight in a reinforced strongroom. Finally, you can forget about marriage or having children. You will be feared by your friends, family, and other soldiers. You will be a monster to both humans and wizards,"

"Both?" Jake echoed softly.

"Yes. Even wizards are terrified of werewolves. At half-morph, you can face one, even two wizards on your own. A werewolf's abilities are fuelled by his anger – it's possible that we don't truly know how powerful one can be,"

Jake remembered the night he killed his own squad mates. He remembered that fight several times a day, and now the memory rose vividly to him; his weakness, the shock and confusion in his friends, staying on their faces as they died, and the man with the lightning-shaped scar who couldn't die.

"…I accept,"

Lieutenant General Anson leaned back in his chair. "Take some time to think it over. The curse is irreversible,"

"Frankly, general, it doesn't sound like much of a curse," Immense power and magic resistance at the cost of alienation and being locked up once a month? It sounded like a decent deal.

"I think so, do you?" The general murmured darkly. "Out of the classified number of men we've given this curse, ten have gone berserk and had to be put down by their own teammates. Most of them prefer to stay locked up in their bunks between deployments. Some of them refuse to see their own families ever again. All of them volunteered to wear ankle monitors while on leave, prepared to inject them with basilisk venom if they ever fully transform,"

The general pulled his chair forward and stared directly into Jake's eye.

"When I say you will be more prone to anger, I don't mean PMS-level testiness. I mean who you are, right now, will cease to exist. Once you become a werewolf, managing the monster inside will be the only thing you ever do with your spare thoughts. This is a curse we are offering only to our most disciplined operators. To be honest, you almost didn't make the cut, Jake,"

Jake met his superior's withering gaze with perfect stillness.

"I've made my decision, general," said Jake firmly. "I'd like to begin learning to control this power as soon as possible,"

"Very well," The general pulled out a knife in a leather sheath. The cross guard and pommel were silver with dark brown leather grip. It looked like an art piece compared to Jake's tactical-style cold iron knife, but Jake did not doubt its viability.

"This goblin silver knife is currently imbued with werewolf saliva. You can keep the knife, imbue it with something else," The general stood up and offered Jake the sheathed knife.

"Remember to always keep your anger under control,"

Jake stood up, accepted the knife and unsheathed it. Unlike the black finish of his cold iron knife, the silver blade gleamed like a mirror. It had the exact same bowie-knife profile as his cold iron knife; the goblins who forged both knives for the military clearly intended them as part of a set.

Jake thought about what he had to lose by taking this curse. He couldn't come up with anything. Any friendship or relationship he had, he had lost after that night; he cast them away and shrank into himself. He was the perfect candidate for this curse.

 _I have nothing but my life to give._ He sliced open his left palm.

Jake had every bone of his ribcage broken once and contracted dengue fever during an exercise in Thailand; what he experienced now was like both at once, multiplied by ten. His blood was boiling under his skin, his bones creaked and twisted, the room spun and swirled. Jake staggered on the edge of falling over. He felt something inside him – his soul maybe – warping and mutating, changing forever. He looked at his palm and saw only blood on unbroken skin. He ripped off his eye patch and picked up the Foe-Glass – his broken eggshell of half an eye was mending; it was fully healed a second after he held up the mirror.

He was growing taller, lankier, but his muscles felt a hundred times stronger; he could break the artefact in his hand with two fingers, which were now clawed. His hair was turning grey with more growing about his face; his teeth had become pointed.

The general looked shaken, Jake could smell his trepidation – had he never seen a transformation before, or never seen one like his?

There were more shadows than before inside the Foe-Glass; they swarmed and filled every speck of space behind his reflection. And not just wizards, but humans as well. Soldiers, civilians, politicians in suits. Everyone. Now the whole world was his enemy.

But that didn't matter to him. There was only one enemy Jake had in mind.

 _If it's the last thing I do, I will kill you, Master of Death._ And when he did, he will be extremely thorough.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Man Who Lived

Chapter 2 – The Man Who Lived

Harry was in one of the Ministry of Magic's many conference rooms; it was a wide room of greenish black brick walls, dark wood floor, and wrought iron chandeliers, a choice which cast a cold and grim atmosphere. The tall arched windows displayed a dark blue evening, but it was not the actual sky; it was only an optical illusion, since the Ministry of Magic building was located deep within a mountain, only reachable by Apparition.

Harry sat two seats to the right of the head of the conference table, on which was spread some parchment and quills. Harry looked down at his reflection on the polished wooden surface; at forty-two years old, he looked better than most, but had grown much shabbier over the past thirteen months. His black hair was thick and untidy as it always was, though closer inspection would reveal early grey strands. There were dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep and his green irises looked dull through his round-lensed, dark-rimmed glasses. He was usually clean-shaven, but he had neglected to shave for a while, leaving a faint shadow on his chin and jaw. He felt eternally tired; he would lie his head on the table and sleep for ages, if only the world wouldn't fall apart when he did.

At the head of the table sat the Minister for Magic, Balthazar Cadogan.

He was a man that emitted a fierce, commanding presence, the kind of leader people wanted in a war. His skin was tanned and his face cut with harsh lines; he wore a short boxed beard and moustache, with his dark hair cut short and close on his head. He was built strong and healthy for his age at sixty; as fit as Harry, who was still on active field duty. He was Head of the Auror Office before Harry succeeded him, and he never lost his callous attitude when he became Minister.

"How far did Godric's Hollow move from its original location?" said Cadogan gruffly, leaning forward on the table with his arms crossed.

"The townspeople shifted it forty kilometres northwest, the furthest they could manage," answered Tarquin Keppel, seated two seats down Cadogan's left, opposite Harry. He was the Chief of the Ministry Police Authority, and currently also commander of the Ministry Wizard Militia: a sour-faced bald man with a black goatee and connecting moustache. He had a reputation for being stony and humourless, but to be fair, Harry was becoming more like that himself.

"We're losing town after town. How did they find us this time? Is it those drones with cold iron detectors?" Cadogan angled his head at the four heads of office before him.

Harry already sent his Aurors to conduct an investigation, and their report just flew in to him this evening.

"There was a CIA spy. During the battle at Chudleigh, she used a fake wand to pose as a witch, and got injured while fighting. A militiaman found her and brought her to the Secret-Keeper of Godric's Hollow, who took her to the town healer. She stayed in the village since, likely gathering intelligence, before she started to draw attention for never using magic. She killed the Secret-Keeper and hid the body. Then she borrowed a cloaked owl, claiming to want to contact her family, but it was sent to the U.S. military. The letter passed the police's inspection, but it was in code, revealing the village's location,"

"Even if she was inside the village, how could she tell its geographic location?"

"She took a sextant and an Astronomical Almanac from another local to calculate it,"

"Huh. So Muggles know how to do that, too," Cadogan said begrudgingly.

 _They know a lot more astronomy than we do,_ thought Harry. _For one, they've actually gone into space._

"Those two men should have tested that she was a witch properly. Why were they allowed to take her straight to the healer? Where were the officers who were supposed to scan them?" Cadogan demanded.

"Officers eventually found her and scanned her. Then she slipped away in the fight between the officers and the man who found her," said Harry.

"Ugh," Cadogan groaned. "Keppel. I want an explanation."

"We could have scanned them right after they left the healer quarters, but we don't have enough militiamen to keep tabs on everyone," said Keppel.

"Then conscript more men," snapped Cadogan. "Our people still think this war will go away if they keep running and hiding long enough,"

"The lack of unity comes from centuries of living in scattered communities," commented the Head of the Office of Intelligence, seated to Cadogan's right, left of Harry. Nowles Lowther was a mousy-looking man, with a small but sharp glare behind his rectangular glasses. He wore his light brown hair side-parted and with a wispy moustache. Before him was a laptop currently in sleep mode. It looked like a modern, high-performance model, but Harry didn't know enough to be sure.

"Well, isn't it grand we're finally fixing that issue?" said Cadogan. He picked up a large brown quill and began scrawling something on a sheet of parchment.

"I'll inform Public Information Services to make an announcement: effective immediately, no witch or wizard is allowed to Apparate directly into the healer quarters. As always, every time anyone leaves or enters a wizard town, a militia officer must record it and scan them with Secrecy Sensors and Probity Probes before they can go, even if they're bleeding out in the queue. Also, it's about time we froze all mail that's not strictly for transmitting intel,"

Now the Head of the Department of Law Enforcement entered the conversation, seated to Cadogan's left. Aminta Fane was a wrinkly, bony old woman with a wiry mess of medium-length grey hair under a pointed witch's hat. She was a consummate bureaucrat, which meant Harry got along with her the least of his colleagues in the room. Technically she held command over Harry's, Lowther's and Keppel's offices, but their offices happened to hold a tradition of being very independent.

"If we were to enact that rule, we might experience some backlash from people who won't take kindly to being unable to contact their families by mail,"

"Morale will plummet even further if wizards continue to shift houses every two weeks," Cadogan rebutted.

"Understood, Minister,"

Cadogan continued his explanation. "We can cloak our owls from photo, thermal and radar, and we can cast enchantments to Vanish any moulting, droppings or carcasses they leave behind. But we can't do anything to stop owls from being intercepted by traps with cold iron detection. We can no longer risk the Muggles using that to identify more town locations,"

"Agreed," chimed Lowther.

"Lowther, have your Spooks acquired any more positions?" Cadogan turned to him.

"No, but the ones we have are still undercover, positioned and waiting for orders,"

Lowther's agents in the British military and government were more dangerous than useful; if they were discovered, it will be so much harder for the Muggles to forgive them.

Harry spoke. "Say you activate them and dominate the Prime Minister and the commanding general. What then? If any leader behaves strangely or makes an illogical decision, the Muggles assume he's been compromised and dismiss him. The Muggles won't accept a ceasefire unless their public calls for it. Unless both the public and the government as a whole believe that truce is a better option,"

Cadogan twirled his quill in his fingers once and threw it back to the table. "Can't disagree with that. But we need to do more to make that happen. Anything else?" He stared pointedly at his war cabinet.

Lowther cleared his throat. "Should we talk to Weasley now?"

"How long have we kept her waiting?"

"Twenty minutes,"

Cadogan waved his hand dismissively. "Turn it on then,"

Lowther woke up his laptop and opened the video chat. A video window popped up and in it were two people Harry had known since he was eleven: Hermione and Ron Weasley. They sat stiffly in their seats some space away from the laptop on their end. Behind them was the sitting room of a luxury hotel suite with cool grey tones.

"Lowther," greeted Hermione curtly.

"Weasley," returned Lowther in kind.

"Harry," said Hermione, as warmly as she greeted Lowther.

"Hermione, Ron," They looked the same since the last time they communicated by video chat. They were dressed in Muggle clothes, Hermione in a cream ruffled blouse and Ron in a blue striped dress shirt. Hermione's hair was brown and rather frizzy; she usually wore it untied, but currently had it in a neat, low hair bun, in order to look presentable to Muggle cameras and officials. Her eyes were brown too and as tired as Harry's.

"Hey, Harry," Ron's short hair was bright red and usually almost as messy as Harry's, but he combed it down to look presentable as well. His blue eyes communicated a mix of sadness and longing. "How are the kids?"

"They're fine, Ron," As fine as they could be, all things considered.

"Tell Rose we said happy birthday, will you? And Lily, too,"

"I will,"

"If you don't mind, Mr. Weasley, this is an official correspondence," Lowther turned the laptop sideways and pushed it before Cadogan.

"Mr. Cadogan," Harry heard Hermione speak.

"Mrs. Weasley. Mr. Weasley. How is London?" said Cadogan with no small helping of sarcasm.

Hermione continued to speak professionally. "I thank you for your concern, Minister. We are fine, but the people of London are scared, as they are everywhere. There's policemen in full tactical gear on every major street. The people you displace from wizard towns live in camps outside the city, with nowhere to go,"

"Any change in terms?" said Cadogan.

There was a bit of latency in the communication, but nothing too jarring. It did, however, lengthen the pause Hermione took before answering. "The…The British government maintains that it will only accept an end to conflict according to the terms of their last Declaration,"

"Which still includes the condition that the Ministry of Magic must order all wizards, including its own employees, to surrender their wands to the British Armed Forces,"

"Yes,"

"Unacceptable. Tell them that we will only negotiate when they accept the right of all lawful wizards to possess wands within the towns and villages that we have declared as the sovereign territory of the Wizard State of the United Kingdom,"

Hermione's politeness started to fade. "Negotiate, Minister? You've been losing negotiating power with the U.K. and U.S. governments with every battle you lose,"

"We lose territory, not battles. Towns are easy enough to take,"

"You lost five wizards yesterday,"

Keppel interjected. "Those were militia deserters. People unhappy with Mr. Potter's no-combat strategy," He shot Harry a stony look.

Keppel would prefer to organize more strikes on military bases, to keep them turtled up instead of expanding. However, they were following Harry's strategy, which meant Cadogan still agreed with Harry, for now.

Harry retorted. "We're avoiding battles that aren't worth the risk. There is little point in attacking them head-on, when they can resupply themselves faster than we can hurt them. And their arms and supplies production are too enormous and widespread for us to put a dent in. They've long learnt how to defend their bases against us – even placed traps designed to counter us. Their alliance with the goblins has also made it harder for us to find where their higher-value assets are,"

"I've warned the Ministry for years to give them more rights and representation –"

Lowther cut in. "Battery life on laptops is limited Mrs. Weasley. Please don't take up our time with another tirade about the goblins,"

Hermione's voice returned snappishly. "So what now, Harry? I see you've turned to attacking other factories –power plants, oil refineries–"

Cadogan graciously turned the laptop around so he and Hermione could argue to each other's faces.

"– just popping in and terrifying innocent civilians. You mind telling me what your men hope to achieve with that?"

Keppel interrupted her. "Mrs. Weasley, it may be Mr. Potter's strategy, but it is my police and militiamen attacking those installations, not his Aurors. We've inflicted minimal civilian harm, targeting only their buildings and machinery,"

Harry met Hermione's gaze with equal anger. "The Muggle people are the key to ending the war. If the war starts hurting their economy, they'll call their government for a truce,"

"That's not the key, Harry. You're just making _everyone_ miserable. The government wants to know that you're not controlling them with Memory Charms or the Imperius Curse,"

"Well, we're not. We only said it a million times,"

Hermione shot the briefest of glances at the other Ministry Heads in the room. "The Prime Minister said on live television he was brainwashed by the Ministry. Before he killed himself,"

"That wasn't us. It was the Knights of Walpurgis,"

"What about the intercepted conspiracy letters?"

They were having the same argument again. Harry was losing his patience. "Don't tell me you believe that stupid accusation. For all we know the Muggles made it up to legitimize the war,"

Hermione shook her head like an exasperated school teacher. "Blind conjecture's not going to get us anywhere,"

Lowther entered his remarks. "Maybe the Muggle governments started the war because they believed we dominated them, but now they continue because their public sees us as an existential threat. We could drag the leader of the Knights before them with a confession and they won't accept it,"

"If you did more to capture the Knights, they wouldn't see us as such a threat," said Hermione.

"I have over halfmy Aurors searching day and night for the Knights," Harry barely restrained himself from shouting. "I go out every day trying to stop them from planting bombs and spewing their vitriol about slaughtering all Muggles. If it weren't for the threat of my Aurors intercepting them, they'd be prancing all over London right now, killing everyone in sight. And what thanks do we get for that? Zero from both sides!"

Hermione winced a little from Harry's outburst. "I-I have been telling the media about what you're doing, but they still can't look past the Ministry's history of memory alteration,"

Fane bristled at Hermione's words. "That's because you've been telling them about it,"

"The governments have known forever about our use of Memory Charms on Muggles," Hermione retorted. "There's no sense in denying it now,"

Fane glowered at Hermione from over her flared nostrils. "Ever since we sent you to London, all you've accomplished is giving the Muggles more and more information about us. You're a traitor to wizardkind. We, who willingly took you in from Muggle society,"

Ron jumped to Hermione's defence. "My wife is not a traitor, Mrs. Fane. She's doing far more work than you are to end this war. Your public addresses are so empty not even Muggle intelligence bothers reading them," Harry thought he saw Fane's wrinkles multiply as she scowled.

Hermione put her hand on Ron's knee to calm him down. "Mrs. Fane, I am first and foremost a witch, and I won't waste my breath trying to prove that to you. What I'm doing is informing the public of who we are, our culture and history. If I don't tell them who we are, they'll never see us as human,"

Harry couldn't help himself from commenting. "It doesn't matter if they see us as human. Muggles have no problem killing humans,"

Hermione's hair seemed to be rising from the heat of her anger. "Oh yeah, Harry? You know what's one thing Muggles _don't_ do? _Dominate their prisoners_. I don't want wizards to surrender their wands either, but we need start negotiations from _somewhere_. If we keep proving that we're a threat to them, they're going to call for worse. They're going to lock us in internment camps forever. There are radical groups calling for our extermination!"

Harry's anger was hitting a boil. "If we surrender, they'll exterminate us eventually. There's no way they can contain all of us. Wizards will escape, kill more Muggles, and that will be the end of us,"

Hermione's voice grew shriller with every line. "God. When did you become so – so cynical! Dumbledore taught us –"

"Not this again," spat Harry.

"You're using an attrition strategy against Muggles! They outnumber us by _billions_ , Harry. We cannot win this. How many more wizards have to die before you see that?"

"Every wizard who dies is fighting for the lives of their children!" Harry shouted, his voice reverberating over the large grim room. "Not serving them up on a silver platter!"

Hermione's scream made the laptop's speakers crackle. "That's not what I'm doing! You need to think this through clearly, for everyone's sakes,"

"I am thinking clearly. You're the one who can't see reality,"

" _Me_? You are _routinely_ blinded by your emotions whenever anything sets you off!"

"You've spent so much time poring over books and office papers, you've lost touch with the truth on the ground. Wizards are too proud to surrender to Muggles. It's truce or death!" Harry slammed his fist on the table, shaking every parchment and quill on it.

"Not everyone is like you, Harry!"

"No, but there are more like me than there are like you!"

Ron put one hand on Hermione's shoulder and held another towards their laptop's screen. His voice was softer than either of theirs, but hung in the air much longer.

"That's enough, both of you," Ron lowered his hands. His voice grew even softer. "We both want the same thing. We have different strategies, but we both want to protect our children. We are both going to do what we can for that. That's what we decided, right?"

Hermione silently took Ron's hand and squeezed it, her head facing down. Harry breathed to cool his pulse. Ron placed his hand over Hermione's and looked to Harry.

"Harry, about –"

Just then, the video froze, then the window closed down with an error message. Lowther pulled the laptop towards him and attempted to remedy the problem.

"What happened?" asked Cadogan, his arms crossed while laying back in his chair.

"Err…we seem to be disconnected…maybe some problem with the router," Lowther mumbled, not entirely confident.

"Can you fix it?" Cadogan asked.

Lowther tried restarting the video chat, then the mobile wireless router connected to the laptop, but to no avail. "Umm…hold on, I'll call someone up," He pulled out a sheet of purple paper and scribbled a single line in it with a steel-coloured quill. He then folded the sheet into a paper plane and threw it towards the door. The large wooden doors creaked a small opening for the plane to fly through and closed behind it.

The conference room fell painfully silent as they waited. Harry kept his eyes fixed to the grain of the table. Cadogan drummed his fingers on it for a minute, then couldn't stand the silence.

"You could stand to improve your speeches, Fane. They are exceptionally uninspiring. Especially next to Talbot's speeches,"

"Y-Yes, Minister. I'll hire a new speechwriter immediately,"

In Harry's opinion, Fane didn't need a new speechwriter; she needed to be useful as something other than a looping portrait telling people that the Ministry is handling the war just fine. For example, she could try to rally their half of parliament and whip them in against Talbot and his hardliners.

"Truth be told, it's not easy to give a more rousing speech than someone who wants to attack the capital like the Russians did," remarked Lowther.

"Hmph," Cadogan scoffed. "If the voters kick me out in favour of Talbot, I'm packing up and joining Weasley," He then shot a crushing glare around the table. "That was a joke, of course,"

The doors opened. Harry turned to see who had entered and felt a terrible twist in his gut.

It was a young boy, either fifteen or sixteen, Chinese. His skin had turned sickly pale from lack of sunlight. His dark hair was straggly, unwashed, and fell past his shoulders; behind the curtain of his hair, his dark eyes were sunken and glazed over. He wore faded grey scrubs – it was the standard attire of prisoners within the Ministry building. It was one size too large for him, an appearance aggravated by his below-average height and weedy frame.

"Ah," Lowther grimaced. "You weren't seen by anyone coming up here, were you?"

The boy shook his head in front of the closed door. "A guard escorted me under a Disillusionment Charm," His voice was a dull monotone. Somewhere underneath it was an American accent.

Lowther beckoned the boy over with his hand. Harry shifted aside so the boy could examine the laptop between him and Lowther. Harry smelled the body odour of someone who did not bathe for days.

Though his fingers were bony, they moved deftly across the keyboard. The monitor churned out windows with lines of text that meant as much to Harry as Ancient Runes.

"It appears to be a compatibility issue with the driver –"

"I don't care what the problem is, just fix it," grumbled Lowther.

Keppel's expression remained inanimate at the boy's presence. Fane was visibly taken aback, while Cadogan knotted his brows sternly.

"This is one of our hackers, yes?" asked Cadogan.

"Yes," answered Lowther. "The most capable of the lot, actually,"

"He's a child," Fane worded breathlessly.

"The others pointed to him as the most skilled in their field," Lowther defended. "You instructed us to capture the best, Mr. Cadogan,"

"Hm. I did," Cadogan muttered. "Make sure he cuts his hair later,"

"Will do, Minister,"

The video chat window popped back up, showing Ron and Hermione looking intently at the screen, presumably attempting to reconnect from their end. When they spotted the boy, Ron reared back and Hermione gasped.

"Is…is that…" Hermione's covered her mouth with her hands. "…That's the hacker boy isn't it?" Her face scrunched up, trying hard to recall something. "What…what is his name again?"

"You don't remember?" a snide smile cracked over Lowther's face. "Weren't you the one who kicked a fuss about sending him back?"

Hermione winced from the sting. Even Ron was too stunned to respond.

"What's his name, then?" asked Harry.

Lowther opened his mouth soundlessly.

"You've had him for nine months," said Harry bitterly.

"Well, you're the one who captured him. Why don't you tell us?" Lowther shot back.

"Enough," Cadogan cut down their exchange. "We've wasted enough time. Mrs. Weasley. Tell me about your meeting today with the U.K. Department of Business, Innovation and Skills," He scanned down at a sheet of parchment to check if he got the name right.

"Wait!" Hermione shouted. "I was just talking about how the Ministry is still dominating their prisoners! Oh God, look at him. This…This is torture!"

Lowther frowned at her accusations. "Oh please – he looks a little unkempt, but he's perfectly healthy. Even when they try to resist eating, we command them to finish their food. See?" He lifted one of the boy's wrists show how much flesh there was. "He's not skeletal,"

" _Not skeletal!_ " Hermione cried. "Is that the Ministry's standard of humane treatment?"

"Compared to the cramped, unsanitary internment camps the Muggles have our people in, these prisoners are practically our guests," said Lowther.

"Harry!" Hermione's voice shook. "How can you allow this?"

Harry wanted to say that it wasn't his decision, but he couldn't take such an easy answer. "We need hackers to identify target locations and to intercept Muggle communications," He said, his voice flat.

Keppel cleared his throat and spoke in a cold, impersonal tone. "We were keeping to this standard of treatment long before you left, Mrs. Weasley. You just never bothered to visit the dungeons," Harry saw Hermione wince again. "Have you forgotten that we're at war? Has that cosy London suite dulled your senses?" Ron bowed his head as well.

"If we may get back on track," declared Cadogan. "Mrs. Weasley. About your meeting today," Lowther took the laptop and turned it around to face Cadogan again.

"Oh, yes," Hermione muttered. "I proposed some trade and labour agreements we could make if they allow us to possess wands in our own territory. They didn't accept, but they were interested in the prospects. I will send you the documents and a transcript of our discussion,"

Hermione uploaded a few files and the boy sent those files to be printed from a printer in another room.

Fane shuddered. "So you want us to be enslaved by Muggles? Like, like _workshop elves_?"

"Why don't you read the documents first before making a comment?" Harry muttered darkly.

Cadogan made a few scribbles on his sheet of parchment. "I think that will be enough for now. I have other matters to attend to. When I'm done reading your files, I will contact you again. We will also discuss the content of your interviews with the Muggle media,"

"Yes, Minister,"

Cadogan began collecting his papers. "Keep in mind that you were dismissed from your position ever since you started supporting our surrender. Any deals you discuss with the Muggles is purely hypothetical. That said…keep doing whatever you can,"

"Understood. Goodnight, Mr. Cadogan,"

Cadogan closed the laptop and pushed it back to Lowther. "Muggle intelligence didn't hear that conversation, did they?"

Lowther turned to the boy. "Answer the question. In simple terms,"

"The communications are encrypted. It is very unlikely,"

"Good," Cadogan stood up and promptly strode out of the room. "Good night, everyone,"

* * *

It was half past eleven by the time Harry was able to return home. Standing in his office, he raised his wand and brought the image of his home to his mind. A two-storey red wooden cottage, surrounded by wood on the outskirts of Hogsmeade Village. He pushed off with his left foot, and spun on his right. His sight went black, and his body experienced a sensation like being forced through a tiny pipe bending and twisting in a dozen different directions.

The next moment, his feet landed on a stepping stone pathway, and he was standing in the front garden of his home. Glowing flowers of different colours adorned their lawn like festive lights, the midnight air was fresh and cool in Harry's lungs, and there was only the peaceful noise of chirping crickets. Every time Harry returned home from work, the beauty and peacefulness of his house was jarring, like an alien world to him. Every day, he felt more and more reluctant to return to it, as if one day he might bring back too much of the other world into this one, polluting it.

Harry stepped through the front porch, opened the front door and entered the sitting room. It was a room of dark reds and browns, almost royal in feeling, from the walls to the furniture. He used to think it was cosy and warming; now the heavy red tones were overwhelming, and reminded Harry of less comfortable things.

His wife Ginny was sleeping in a plush red couch by the fireplace. Held gently in her fingers was their family photo album, opened to the same page as always. As Harry closed the front door, the sound stirred her awake. She closed the book, set it on the coffee table, and turned to face him.

"Harry. How was your day?"

"Fine," Harry muttered automatically. "Sorry I'm late," Outside, he saw that the upper storey lights were off, and he currently didn't hear any other activity in the house. "Are the kids asleep?"

"Yes. We saved some cake for you in the fridge. Hugo says it's best eaten by tomorrow afternoon while the Leavening Charm is still active,"

Hugo always baked a cake for every birthday in his and Harry's family; he was by far the best chef in the household. Harry very much wanted to just take a shower and drop unconscious in his bed, but instead he placed his messenger bag on the coffee table and sat down on the couch next to Ginny.

Since Rose was asleep, Harry would have to wait until tomorrow wish her happy birthday for Ron and Hermione.

"That's nice of him. How was Rose's birthday?" Harry asked, staring into the burning fireplace, which was tall enough for a man to stand in. It reminded him of the Fiendfyre that killed Vincent Crabbe long ago at Hogwarts. It never used to remind him of anything, but lately everything reminded Harry of the past. He tried to find answers and solace in his past experiences, but found little of that compared to mistakes and regret.

"Hmm, uneventful. Everyone just ate dinner and went back to their rooms," said Ginny.

They sat silently for a while, calmly watching the fire. Then Ginny spoke again. "Today can't have been 'fine'. Godric's Hollow was taken,"

Harry didn't want to burden Ginny with his problems, but telling her nothing only made her upset. He tried to say things as matter-of-factly as possible.

"Yes. Godric's Hollow was a historic village. Talbot will probably use it in his next statement, demand that we take it back,"

"Talbot. I wish we could just, not report anything he does,"

She probably wanted him to talk about his feelings – how his parents' home was levelled and their cemetery blasted to craters, but Harry honestly didn't have much to say about that. Compared to everything else this war has taken from him, that was nothing. He searched for something else to talk about.

"I talked with Hermione and Ron today," he blurted out.

"Really?" Ginny sat up. "How are they doing?"

"They're okay. Still in London. They met with the British government today, trying to negotiate for peace with a trade deal,"

"Are they being treated alright?"

"Yeah, as far as we can tell," Harry didn't want to admit he got in a row with Hermione again.

"Did you have a fight with Hermione?"

Harry sighed. Was Ginny too perceptive, or was he just too easy to read? "…Yes. Mostly the same stuff as last time,"

Ginny shook her head. "That Hermione…she always brings up the same issues again and again,"

Ginny was just trying to make him feel better, which Harry appreciated, despite not quite agreeing with her assessment. Ginny and Hermione were best friends; they should still be best friends, just as Harry still considered Ron and Hermione his best friends. There were few people in the world he could call 'friend'. People who truly knew him as Harry Potter, and not 'Head of the Auror Office', 'The Man Who Lived' or 'Master of Death'.

Hermione's arguments rolled around in his head again, like a bowling ball bouncing off the inside of his skull. "Ginny…Am I doing the right thing?"

"What? Of course you are," She didn't even ask what he was right about.

In all the years that Harry had known Hermione, in all the incidents they've been through, she had never, ever been wrong about anything. She was the smartest woman he knew, called the brightest witch of her age, and yet now of all times Harry refused to listen to her. He wanted very much to believe her, to believe that the Muggles would not subjugate them too harshly, that wizards would be able to adapt to life without wands…but he couldn't. He just couldn't see it.

When the fire didn't remind him of the Fiendfyre, it reminded him of something worse. In a soft voice, Harry revealed his deepest, most terrible fear.

"What if…what if the prophecy is my fault? What if I'm the one fulfilling the prophecy? The prophecy only exists because I –"

Ginny took Harry's shoulders and turned him to face her. Her long straight hair was light red and glowed with light from the fireplace; she had aged much better than Harry in his opinion, still as beautiful as on the day he married her. Her bright brown eyes burned fiercely with resolve.

"The prophecy started before you even heard it. Albus…wasn't your fault,"

"But James and Lily and you…"

"That won't happen. If it comes to it, you and I will be the ones…but not every prophecy comes true. We can beat this. You've beaten the odds before,"

Harry averted his eyes from Ginny's, unable to face her undeserved faith in him.

"This is nothing like before. Before was…simple compared to this,"

Ginny was silent for a while, her hands still resting on his shoulders. Then she stood up and kissed him on the forehead.

"It's been a long day for you. I'll prepare the bath for you – I'll let you know when it's ready,"

"I don't need a bath,"

"Just take the bath,"

"Okay,"

She moved around the couch and climbed up the sitting room stairs to the upstairs bathroom. Harry's body was aching and he probably needed the bath's soothing potions, but now he was forced to stay awake rather than drown himself in sleep – forced to stay with his own thoughts.

Fifty-one years ago, a powerful dark wizard known to the world as Lord Voldemort led his followers in the First Wizarding War of Great Britain, aiming to rule both the Muggle and wizarding world. On October 31st, 1981, Voldemort killed Harry's parents and tried to kill him when he was a one-year old boy. He did it to undermine a prophecy which foretold that Harry was the only person capable of defeating him. However, Harry was protected by an ancient magic that was activated by his mother's sacrifice; Voldemort's Killing Curse rebounded and he was reduced to a feeble spectre. He fled into hiding and the wizarding world celebrated the end of his reign of terror, believing him dead.

Fourteen years later, Lord Voldemort returned, determined again to kill Harry and rule the world. And so began the Second Wizarding War of Great Britain. In the early hours of May 2nd, 1998, Harry slayed Voldemort for good, but only after destroying the dark magic artefacts that kept him immortal by binding his soul to the earth. Harry would not have gotten anywhere in destroying those artefacts if it weren't for the help and sacrifice of many friends and guardians.

Both times, Harry took most of the credit for Voldemort's defeat. In neither case did he deserve it. Harry's search for Voldemort's Horcruxes was desperate, arduous, seemingly hopeless at many points, but his seventeen-year old self never wavered so much as his forty-two-year old self did now.

Back then, his goal was straightforward, his decisions easy to make. Even when he used the Imperius Curse to retrieve the Horcruxes, he knew without a doubt that it was for the greater good, that it would never backfire on him. Harry's world was simpler then; it was a world where moral choices existed. That was because his sight was narrower then, and it was his friends and guardians who made all the hard choices.

This was the first war to truly test who Harry was, and Harry found that he was no hero. Albus Severus Potter, his second son, died when British forces struck Diagon Alley, the central business district of wizarding Britain. They were so confident in their concealment and warning magic, but the goblins revealed their change of alliance by leading the military into Diagon Alley through a secret passage within Gringotts Bank. Harry found Albus outside Ron and George's joke store, hit by crossfire from both rifle and wand.

No death hurt Harry as much as Albus's. He was his son – he was supposed to protect him. He wanted more than anything just to hear him again. So he went to the Forbidden Forest in search of the Resurrection Stone. Just to see him once more, he told himself, just to say goodbye, and sorry. It was there that Harry learned that there was no bottom to the pit called despair.

* * *

The Resurrection Stone was one of three ancient magical objects called the Deathly Hallows which, according to legend, were created by Death himself, though they were more likely created by powerful wizards of the past. The Stone possessed the ability to summon the deceased loved ones of the holder, but only an incorporeal shade, a solid-colour ghost.

Twenty-three years ago, Lord Voldemort delivered an ultimatum to Harry's friends and allies: either they would bring him Harry Potter, or die. Harry entered the Forbidden Forest where Voldemort waited, and willingly gave his life. Before he did so, he used the Stone to bring back the shades of his parents and his closest guardians. They gave him the courage to face his death. He then dropped the Stone in the Forest before meeting Voldemort, intending for it to be lost forever.

Harry had brought six different magical detectors with him into the Forest, but in the end he didn't need any of them, because the Stone had not shifted an inch from the spot he left it all those years ago.

Even in daylight, the Forbidden Forest was shrouded, blanketed by the shifting shadows of its canopy. Dark tree trunks stood densely near and far, like monumental pillars holding up the sky of dappled light and dark. Just a few yards away was where he had died once. Harry knelt down and dug at the forest floor, sweeping aside the layer of decomposing leaves, digging his fingers into the soft black soil.

His heart jumped when his fingers contacted the Stone. It was a tiny stone no larger than a grape, cut in a regular octahedron. It resembled polished iron ore with its dark-grey sheen, but sat eerily weightless in his palm, even for its size. Sitting within the Stone was a symbol: a regular triangle, housing a circle that just touched its sides, and a vertical line bisecting both.

Harry focused on the image of his son, and turned the Stone over three times in his hand. Harry waited with bated breath, listening for his kind humble voice, scanning the trees for his slight frame and the black mop-top hair that Ginny cut herself. But seconds passed, then a minute. Harry turned over the Stone three times again – that was supposed to activate it. He tried everything: he squeezed it, rubbed it, even kissed it, but nothing worked. His momentary excitement turned into anxiety.

Harry heard the soft snapping of dried leaves being stepped on. Harry looked up and saw the centaur Firenze approaching him.

"Harry Potter," His voice was a low dignified rumble. "It has been many years since our last meeting,"

The Forest was home to many magical creatures, not least of which included a colony of centaurs. A centaur was a towering creature; Firenze gazed down at Harry from over nine feet high. His human half was proportional in bulk to his horse half – his upper torso was easily thrice the size of Harry's. His coat was an earthy dark brown like the soil at his hooves, his hair marginally thinner on his upper half. His noble face possessed equine features; slightly elongated, with a flat nose and high-set pointed ears; his dark beard and head hair was a short tangled bush. He appeared to have not aged in the slightest since the twenty-three years Harry last saw him.

"Firenze," Harry was on decent terms in the centaurs of the Forest; as decent as a human could be, given that centaurs kept almost entirely to their own kind.

"I sense a great sadness in you," The centaur regarded him with his stark blue eyes. "You have suffered a loss,"

"My son," Harry murmured, standing up.

"My condolences. May his soul journey safely across the plains of the Aether,"

"He was only fifteen. He deserved longer,"

"Death takes with no regard to mortal concerns of fairness. His reasons are beyond our ken,"

Albus was the most thoughtful of his children. He never wished anyone ill in his life. Whatever reason Albus died for, it wasn't good enough.

Firenze studied Harry more carefully, and his enormous visage grew uneasy.

"The threads of Fate coil around you. More than ever before," He retreated a step back on each hoof. "Remain here, Harry Potter. I will return shortly," And he galloped away. Harry lost sight of him in seconds behind the forest shrubbery.

Firenze returned two minutes later, and in his arms he carried enough dried wood to start a large fire. In one hand he grasped an assortment of herbs and branches. He dropped the dried wood to the ground before Harry and handed him the herbs and branches.

"Take these, Harry Potter, and burn them,"

Harry took out his personal wand and pointed to the firewood. " _Incendio,_ " They instantly ignited with crackling flames. A terrible trepidation loomed in Harry's chest; like most wizards, he never put much stock in divination magic for its vague and inaccurate reputation, but centaurs were known as very accurate diviners. Harry fed the herbs and branches to the fire in the order he was once taught in Divination class by Firenze himself.

Firenze scrutinized the dancing of the flames and smoke. They revealed to him secrets that Harry could not see. "Your journey has been fraught with great trial, Harry Potter. But for those who challenge the darkness, there can be no peace," Suddenly, Firenze drew a sharp intake of breath and froze still; his stark blue eyes became glazed and unfocused, no longer paying the flames any mind. His voice turned grave and ominous.

" _Deaths of your family mark the course of war in this land between magical and non-magical man. One death near the beginning, one death near the crest, and one death near the end. Flee, and you will be caught. Cheat, and you will be robbed. Fight, and you will be broken. Death will not be evaded, deceived, or beaten,"_

The centaur blinked and his body unfroze, but it was now Harry who fell still. He did not want to understand it, but he heard 'death' several times, and the word echoed a thousand times more in his ears. The Forest tipped and spun and lost all its air. His mind could no longer register what the orange moving shape in front of him was.

Firenze raised his palm to his face, as if to steady a dizzy spell.

"This is strange. Why do the heavens detail events so minor? The fate of many must rest on this vision,"

Only a few of Firenze's words entered Harry's ears. "Minor? _Minor_?" He meant to shout louder, but his voice was hoarse. "What…what was that?" He asked in some stupid hope that he could be wrong.

"That was…a prophecy granted from the heavens," The centaur gazed at him with awful sympathy. "I am sorry,"

Harry did not know how long he stood until he was able to speak. "I…I can't...I can't let that happen…Firenze…how do I stop it?" Harry beseeched him.

Firenze's blue eyes were not light, but a dark blue like the night sky. They stared at Harry with a deep yet distant sadness.

"Fate does not share most of her machinations, but what she does share is immutable. The course of the heavens cannot be swayed by mortal will. Death, in particular, does not announce himself lightly,"

"Then…what am I supposed to do?" Harry cried desperately.

Firenze turned around and started to walk away. He turned his head around for one last word. "The only advice I can give you, Harry Potter, is to prepare yourself. We cannot change the course of the heavens; we can only change the way we face them,"

And so Firenze trotted away, leaving Harry with the burning fire and a feeling worse than anything he had felt in his life.

* * *

After the Forest, Harry took the Resurrection Stone to the Unspeakables: the magic researchers of the Ministry of Magic. Their tests upon the Stone revealed that it was out of mana: mana was the basis of all magic, an energy that could be shaped by the will into any form of matter or energy, including unnatural forms that defied the laws of physics.

When Harry last used the Resurrection Stone, he had consumed all the mana stored within it. Usually, magical artefacts will replenish their store of mana over time, but the chaotic magical ambience of the Forbidden Forest prevented it for all the years it remained there. According to the Unspeakables' examination, the Stone required an astronomical amount of mana to activate its primary enchantment; it would be prohibitively costly to recharge the Stone with the means the Ministry had available, and it would take centuries for the Stone to recharge on its own.

"Harry," Ginny descended halfway down the stairs and called to him. "The bath's ready. Come straight to bed when you're done. No working,"

"Thanks," Harry replied. Ginny went back up the stairs, presumably heading to their bedroom. Harry got up from the sofa and slowly made his way to his and Ginny's bathroom on the right end of the upper floor. With every creaking step up the stairs, Harry felt older and heavier; his grey Auror robes seemed a palpable load on his weary shoulders.

Harry told only Ginny, Ron and Hermione about the prophecy. After their initial shock, they became far more confident than him that they would be able to break the prophecy. Their confidence was probably just the strong front they wore for his sake. Ginny said that not all prophecies came true…but this was a prophecy made by a centaur in Trance, and according to every divination expert Harry spoke to in the Department of Mysteries, those always came true.

Desperate, Harry retrieved the Elder Wand, hoping that its power would help him end the war quickly. During the Second Wizarding War, Voldemort stole the Wand from the tomb of Harry's closest mentor, Albus Dumbledore. After Harry defeated Voldemort, he resolved to return the Wand to Dumbledore and leave its power to fade away. When Harry found himself desecrating Dumbledore's tomb just as Voldemort did before, it was then that Harry truly vanquished all lingering notions that he was special, that he was ever a better man than anyone he knew.

He only wanted the Resurrection Stone to see his son again, and only wanted the Elder Wand to protect his family. He had always kept the Invisibility Cloak he inherited from his father. He did not expect that the three Deathly Hallows together would make him un-killable. The wizarding world's hopes rose high at this discovery. They praised him as their saviour, the one who would bring the Muggles to heel. But they and Harry quickly learnt that even the Elder Wand's power and infinite regeneration from death were no match for the sheer size and might of the Muggle forces.

Harry entered the rather spacious bathroom. Their bathtub was filled with warm water topped with a layer of frothy violet bubbles. Harry ignored it for the moment and turned to the bathroom mirror to shave off his stubble. In that mirror he saw no Master of Death – just a weak, ragged man.

Without Ron and Hermione, he felt broken, cut in half. The other half of him was only held together by Ginny and his children. He had betrayed Dumbledore's expectations, and betrayed his seventeen-year old self, who turned down the power of the Hallows. And if he didn't somehow turn this war around, soon he will betray all those who placed their faith in him.

Harry reached up and touched the lightning-bolt shaped scar on his right temple, usually hidden from view by his fringe; he traced his finger over the three straight lines – thin, red, and just slightly protruding. It was a scar left on him by Voldemort on his first attempt on Harry's life. When he did so, he unwittingly embedded a piece of his soul into Harry. That fragment of soul was now gone, but never had Harry ever felt closer to Voldemort than he did now. To be so powerful, yet so weak. To sink deeper and deeper into darkness trying to achieve your ends, only to constantly fear whether you weren't going far enough, or on the wrong path entirely. Yes, even Voldemort had his doubts; others saw him as a dark god, but he was only a man, just like Harry. Harry saw it in his eyes, in his heaving breath, when he gave Voldemort one last chance to redeem himself.

In the end, Voldemort believed it was too late for him – he fought one final battle, and Harry slew him. Harry only hoped it was not too late for himself, before he became the vanquished foe of another hero.


	3. Chapter 3 - Ethan

Chapter 3 – Ethan

Harry did not feel himself deserving of a bath. He may look weary in the mirror, but so did almost everyone fighting the war in the Ministry. He didn't smell _that_ bad either, at least not as bad as –

A ridiculous, risky and impractical thought occurred to him. _It's not me who needs a bath._ It was the hacker boy that Harry brought to the Ministry nine months ago, whose name he couldn't even remember. Harry couldn't bring himself to sit in a tub of soothing bath potions with the memory of that boy so fresh in his mind. But he couldn't just let Ginny's effort in preparing it go to waste. So there was only one solution. Harry pulled out the Elder Wand and Disapparated.

Harry rematerialized in a long hallway lined with animated paintings. A couple of the torches on the walls ignited automatically, illuminating the small length of the hallway where Harry stood. Before him was a large painting that stretched to the wall; it depicted a witch being burned at the stake, forever screaming soundlessly as the flames danced around her. In earlier days of human history, witches and wizards lived in constant fear of Muggles capturing and killing them – they weren't always able to escape, especially if the Muggles knew to take their wands.

The large painting shifted to the side, revealing a hidden stairway. Harry descended, with the painting shifting back into place behind him. The walls, stairs and ceiling were all made of cold, grey granite; more torches lighted the steps for Harry as he descended for several dozen feet. The stairs ended in a solid stone wall that shifted aside as he approached.

The guard sitting by the entrance to the dungeons stirred awake as Harry entered his hallway. "Mr. Potter," He nodded towards Harry, which Harry returned as he passed by. He turned left and right down various stony passages until he entered the first cell block of the Ministry's dominated Muggle prisoners.

" _Lumos,"_

Harry lighted his wand as he entered the pitch-black hallway. Both sides of the block were lined with two levels of prison cells; through the bars he could see prisoners in grey scrubs lying on their thin beds. His wand's light and his footsteps did not wake them, as all dominated prisoners were ordered into a deep sleep after dinner. All they had with them in the cell was a toilet bowl and a sink. The dungeons were intended as a jail for wizards awaiting trial and a prison for wizards the Ministry wanted nearby for interrogation; most criminal wizards went to dedicated magical prisons. Right now though, the dungeons were filled with soldiers, engineers, doctors…men of any Muggle profession that could provide useful skills or knowledge.

As he passed the other prisoners, Harry mused over the silliness of his impulse. If he let that boy bathe in his house, it stood to reason that he should bring all the other prisoners to his house as well. He could only imagine the look on Ginny's face if she were to walk out of their bedroom to see a long line of men in prisoner garb queuing up for their bathroom.

Harry knew where the boy's cell was, as he had passed it the last time he visited the dungeons to drop off a Knight of Walpurgis. That was three months ago, and the boy had looked the same then. Harry always knew the conditions of the Muggle prisoners, but put them out of his mind because it was war. Harry did not think for a moment that one bath was going to make up for nine months of imprisoned domination – the gesture was more for himself than for the boy.

Harry turned down a side passage into another hallway, identical to the first. Like the previous hallway, a square stone pillar stood between every few cells. On each side of these pillars was a full-sized portrait of a knight in full plated armour and closed helm; they were enchanted to keep watch over the cells and alert the guard quarters to suspicious activity. They made no movement as Harry passed them.

Harry stopped before the boy's cell. The boy's hair was still uncut and he was still awake. He sat hunched over on his bed, his hands clutching a steel quill, its metal nib pointed upwards. The boy winced at the light of Harry's wand, and their eyes made contact for an instant.

Just as Harry realized what he was trying to do, it happened – he stabbed himself in the jugular. Harry whipped out a pocket knife from his belt – it had the ability to undo any lock or untie any knot, even those enchanted with sealing spells. He jabbed the blade into the cell lock, threw the door open, and rushed to the boy's side. He pulled a Healing Potion from his belt and wrapped an arm around the boy's head; Harry had to forcibly pry his mouth open as he was trying to hold it shut.

Harry poured the potion down his throat. His wound wasn't deep but was pumping out blood – a long trail of blood ran down the boy's clothes before the wound clotted shut.

A clattering of footsteps on stone echoed from down the hallway. Swiftly, Harry shut the cell door with his wand; he then pulled his Invisibility Cloak from his robe pocket, flung it over himself and retreated to the back of the cell. Harry noted that the security knight for this cell had disappeared from its frame.

"Ugh, not again," groaned a familiar voice. Two wand tips glowing with white light appeared before the boy's cell, illuminating Lowther and a dungeon guard behind him. Lowther looked down at the boy curled on the floor and frowned in distaste.

"You can go – I'll take care of this," Lowther shooed the guard away. As the guard left, Lowther entered the cell and shined his wand's light over the boy. "Oh, so that's where my quill went," He bent down and picked the steel quill from the boy's fingers. Then he paused and seemed to notice something – a single drop of blood that was a few feet from the boy, halfway to the back wall.

" _Stupefy!"_

Harry reacted quickly – with a swipe of his wand, he deflected the Stunning Spell with a Shield Charm. The red jet of light and the light blue screen briefly bathed the cell with light. Harry pulled his Invisibility Cloak aside to reveal himself.

Lowther was understandably surprised. "Potter? What are you doing here? It's almost midnight,"

"I could ask you the same question," said Harry.

Lowther smirked and lowered his wand to his side while keeping it alight. Harry lowered his lighted wand as well. "We at Intelligence work late hours. I was interrogating a Cabal smuggler when I heard a security knight run by with the 'dying prisoner alarm'. Now your turn,"

Harry responded calmly – he had become a much better liar since entering the Ministry. "I wanted to ask this boy some technical questions. But just as I got here, he stabbed himself,"

"Then why did you hide under your Cloak?" Lowther squinted through his narrow glasses.

Harry shrugged a single shoulder. "Force of habit,"

"Hmph," Lowther seemed to leave the matter aside and peered down at the boy. "Get up," The boy climbed to his feet. Lowther noted the healing wound and trail of blood. "What is this, the seventh time?" He groaned irritably at the boy. He then returned his gaze to Harry. "Well then Potter, ask your questions,"

Harry continued to behave like he was completely entitled to his actions. "Not here – I'll be taking the boy to my office to look at my laptop. Don't work too hard, Lowther," He turned to the boy and pointed with his head towards the cell door. "Let's go," The boy started to move.

"Wait," Lowther threw his arm out to block the boy. The boy halted and shifted back in place. "It's too dangerous to take this one outside, Potter,"

Harry maintained an innocent sense of curiosity. "And why is that?"

"He's getting too good at breaking the Imperius Curse. Seven times now; he has weeks of full freedom before the guards find out. The first four times he ran around the building trying to escape. The last two times, he tried to kill himself. He also tries very hard to be useless – you have to give very specific commands to get him to tell you anything,"

Breaking the Imperius Curse seven times in nine months was extraordinary, especially for a Muggle child. Sadly, Harry was not surprised that he had attempted to end his own life; there were a few other same incidents among the Muggle prisoners, though thanks to the dungeons' detection systems, none yet had been able to succeed.

"I'll reinforce the curse and keep an eye on him,"

"It's still too risky – if he breaks out of control again and gets spotted by too many people to cover up, the media will have a field day. Talbot will charge us with torture – even if it doesn't stick, it will waste our time and hurt our re-election,"

"Didn't you bring him up to our meeting earlier tonight?" Besides, it was the middle of the night right now; no low-clearance employees were going to be around at this time. Lowther usually made more sense than this. He was determined not to let Harry take the boy.

"Yes, and look what happened," Lowther gestured to the boy's neck. "We can't risk that again. Take another hacker, they'll answer your questions just fine,"

Harry was the sort of idiot who was only emboldened by resistance. "This one is the best of the lot. I'm taking him. Call Fane if you want to stop me," Harry stepped towards the cell door.

Lowther shifted himself in the way of the exit. "You're taking him to the Order, aren't you? To help Weasley," he muttered darkly.

"What?" Harry voiced with genuine surprise.

"Her little 'awareness campaign' can't take off without a more appealing media presence. The Order can't keep their website up, and their members suffer a lot of attacks and threats from hackers. So she needs someone who can defend the Order from them,"

"And what's wrong with that?"

"If you want to help her, you'll have to go through Cadogan – no sneaking about," Harry could see the desperation growing in the tightness of Lowther's face. "And take someone else – a security engineer – this one's a cracker. He's good at attacking, not protecting,"

"I want this one,"

"Then talk to Cadogan in the morning,"

Harry stepped close, standing a foot from Lowther's face. Lowther tensed, but held his ground.

"You're going to kill him, aren't you?"

"What? Where did that come from?" Lowther was an excellent liar as well, but Harry spent nearly two decades as an Auror, routinely facing down hardened criminal wizards. Harry could see the gears turning behind his eyes, trying to find a solution.

"What does the boy know?"

"Nothing,"

"So you blocked his memories with Memory Charms? You think I was going to take him away and try to break them?"

"I've done no such thing," Lowther calmly returned his steel quill into his robe pocket.

"So there's nothing for you to worry about, is there?" Harry was tired of Lowther's dodging and diverting. "Step aside, Lowther. You know you can't beat me," He pressed the tip of his still-lighted wand to Lowther's chest and slowly pushed him out the cell. He briefly turned back to the boy. "Let's go,"

Leaving Lowther behind, Harry went back down the pitch-black hallway the way he came, with the boy following silently behind him. Harry scanned the minds of the prisoners around him with Legilimency; fortunately, none of them had broken out of domination as well and overheard his conversation with Lowther.

Harry was halfway across the cell block when the Foe-Watch on his wrist heated up, warning him of imminent danger. He looked down at the tiny obsidian mirror strapped on his wrist like a watch – it showed five glowing red dots lining the top edge of the mirror, and one red dot near the bottom. Like a Muggle radar, his Foe-Watch detected the location of nearby persons with ill intent towards him. Harry looked up and spotted five men with lighted wands advancing towards him.

They raised their wands to the air at once and fired five light blue beams; they spread to form a shimmering rectangular barrier, its sides nearly reaching the cells lining the hall as well as the ceiling. It was an Imperturbable barrier; all light and sound from within, as well as the barrier itself, was unperceivable to people outside it. It was cast to ensure that no prisoners would be able to witness whatever happened next.

Harry halted as the men trained their wands on him. They exchanged worried glances, probably to do with who their target was. A pair of footsteps from behind signalled Lowther catching up with Harry and the boy.

"Of course I can't beat the holder of the Elder Wand by myself. Which is why I called reinforcements," Lowther must have used a Protean-Charmed artefact to silently call for his men while returning his quill to his pocket.

"Gentlemen, the Head Auror is about to commit an act of treason against the Ministry of Magic, in a moment of misguided pity," Lowther addressed his Spooks. "He needs to be restrained until he can properly re-evaluate his priorities,"

As one, the Spooks fired five jets of red light – Harry raised a Shield just in time, but the Stunners overwhelmed it – the spells collided with a blinding blast and knocked Harry tumbling over the stone floor. His wand was still glued to his hand with a Sticking Charm; the only way to remove it was with –

" _Expelliarmus!"_

The Elder Wand flew out of his hands, spun in a high arc through the air and landed in Lowther's outstretched left hand. All eyes fell upon it amidst a stunned silence – made of ashen brown elder wood, fifteen inches long, and the hair of a Thestral sealed in its core. Lowther stowed his own wand into his sleeve and switched the Elder Wand to his main hand. He lighted it and pointed it down at Harry.

" _Incarcerous!"_

Thick hemp ropes burst from the wand and coiled tightly around Harry's arms and legs. Harry struggled against them, squirming on his back, only in vain.

"I guess I'm master of the Elder Wand now," Lowther strolled towards Harry, looking down at him with a slimy grin. "That means you're mortal now, too," Lowther still needed the Resurrection Stone and Invisibility Cloak in Harry's robes to become immortal himself. He would also need to invent a very good explanation to arrest Harry and take his Hallows without raising too much suspicion from the Ministry and the public.

"I'm really upset it had to come to this, Potter. We're supposed to be allies. I suppose the proper solution here is to get rid of the source of our conflict," He turned his wand on the boy, who had retreated to the side by the edge of the Imperturbable barrier.

"Lowther, no!" Harry yelled. "Just wipe my memory! You don't have to kill him!"

Lowther shook his head slowly. "He's been trying to do that himself for months now, and he's just too risky to keep alive any longer, despite his invaluable service," The white light at the end of the Elder Wand changed to a dim light green. "Goodbye boy, or whatever your name is,"

The boy said nothing; he had broken out of the Imperius Curse and could run or plead for his life – but he simply stood there, facing the green light of the impending Killing Curse. His unkempt long hair was pulled to the sides, so Harry was able to see his cool, impassive face. He didn't even close his eyes; he just waited for death with what appeared as soulless resignation. But Harry could see different – he was holding himself steady, not allowing himself to show fear, facing death with unflinching dignity – Harry knew because he did the same thing himself many years ago.

A surge of strength filled Harry; he swung his legs in a wide arc towards the Spooks – a light blue spark flew from his leg, spitting scintillating light like a sparkler. It whizzed and swirled and zig-zagged in the faces of the Spooks like a manic firework, blinding them with strobing pops and filling their ears with sizzling noise.

Harry drew a zig-zig wand flourish with his legs – _"Diffindo!"_ – and the ropes binding him cut cleanly down the centre. Lowther turned and fired a Stunner; Harry kicked with his leg and a jet of air from his feet propelled him out of the way. Harry rolled to his feet and opened his left palm – his personal wand flew out from under his left pant leg and into his grasp; a medium brown wood of holly, eleven inches, phoenix feather core.

Lowther drew a wide circle with the Elder Wand, casting a standing Shield Charm – that was a mistake, standing in place for two whole seconds. Harry pointed his wand and opened the right half of his robes; two Crystal Lightnings flew out of his potion belt, golf ball-sized shards of magical electricity. Blue crackling lightning overwhelmed the Elder Wand's Shield and enveloped Lowther's body. As Lowther dropped to the ground, Harry flicked his wand and summoned the Elder Wand back to his right hand.

The Spooks had finally managed to dispel Harry's Spark Wisp. Harry twirled the Elder Wand over his chest, casting the Haste Charm upon himself just as the Spooks fired a slew of varied spells at him – beams, fireballs, and conjured blades to name a few. His body enhanced with inhuman speed, he dodged away from the Spooks' spells, sliding left and right with speed like a shadow. He dropped his personal wand into his sleeve and levitated out his Invisibility Cloak.

As the Cloak fastened over his shoulders, Harry vanished and began returning fire on the bewildered Spooks. A single Stunner overpowered one Spook's Barrier and dropped him unconscious. The Spooks covered the area with spells their attempt to catch him; those that he couldn't dodge, he simply erased out of the air with the right counter-spell. One Spook used a sweeping cone of fire to try to catch Harry, but he was already behind him and downed the man with another Stunner. Harry then twirled his wand between his fingers in a series of spins, performing the complex wand flourish for an extremely potent spell:

" _Fulgetrium!"_

Blue lightning roared from the Elder Wand, loud as any true bolt of lightning, capable of shaking bones and causing temporary deafness. Searing light filled the entire area enclosed by the Imperturbable barrier. The single stroke of lightning struck one Spook and jumped to the remaining two, shattering all their Barriers and dropping them as twitching, paralyzed heaps. Harry unfastened the Invisibility Cloak and it snaked back into his robe pocket.

Then he spotted that Lowther had struggled up to his knees and aimed his wand at the boy.

" _Avada Kedavra!"_

In a fraction of a second, Harry covered ten metres, skidding to a halt in front of the boy. The jet of green light, the Killing Curse, struck Harry's chest with a great rush of wind – and scattered into tiny shards of light, which faded away like embers. Harry didn't feel a single thing from the spell; he only felt slightly sick from his rapid acceleration and deceleration.

Lowther's wand hand fell limply to the floor. Harry disarmed Lowther and summoned his wand into Harry's free hand; his wand was a dark brown wood, ten and a quarter inches.

"Hah," Lowther squeaked out a chuckle from his pained lungs. "You really areHarry Potter,"

" _Petrificus Totalus,"_

Lowther's arms snapped to his sides and his legs snapped together. Then he levitated upright, stiff as a wooden board with his feet a couple of inches off the ground.

Harry turned his wand to the fallen Spooks. They too floated rigidly upright and drifted closer to Harry. Harry then made several swift swishes with his wand, drawing the wand flourishes for two advanced spells in combination. Mana coursed through his body and charged in his wand for several seconds; the extra power he required for multiple targets. He concentrated intensely on his spells' intended effect.

" _Obliviate ad Confundo!"_

The Spooks shuddered from their unconsciousness, or they would have shuddered if they weren't held by the Full Body-Bind Hex; their eyes merely rattled in their sockets and rolled towards the back. The first spell erased their memories of the last ten minutes; the second spell left them in a pliant, highly suggestible state for a short duration.

"Return to whatever you were doing before Lowther summoned you," said Harry, releasing them from the Body-Bind Hex. The five men landed on their feet and quietly walked out of the cell block. Harry then turned back to Lowther and released him as well.

"You can hand over your Occlumency Charm or I can take it from you," Harry dropped Lowther's wand down his sleeve, approached, then stretched out and opened his left palm.

Lowther was extremely reluctant, with good reason. His Occlumency Charm was his strongest bulwark against mental alteration. If Harry was a different man, he could keep Lowther under his thrall, or completely alter his personal history with false memories. Harry did not even contemplate it – he had no doubt he would eventually be caught through one misstep or another.

With great trepidation, Lowther reached down his right ankle and pulled out from under his sock a coin-sized circular badge. It looked exactly like a golden iris and pupil – a small black circle in the middle, with a thick outer ring of diffusing gold latticework. His hand hovered uncertainly over Harry's palm – he met Harry's eyes and searched them. With a calm breath he gave Harry the Charm.

He pointed his wand to Lowther. _"Imperio,"_

If Lowther attempted to resist with his personal Occlumency abilities, he would not last long against the Elder Wand, but he gave no resistance. His eyes became unfocused and his expression faded to tranquillity. Harry only needed a few things from Lowther; he pulled out Lowther's wand and held it out to him.

"Remove all Memory Charms and other mental enchantments you've placed on this boy," he indicated to the boy, who continued to stand wordlessly behind Harry. Harry could not imagine what was currently going through his mind.

Lowther mechanically took his wand and aimed it at the boy – then his body shook, as if struggling against a physical force holding him in place. Veins rose across his neck and arms; his face betrayed nothing, but Harry knew he was in pain.

"Stop," It appeared that Lowther had used a magical contract to bind himself against lifting his own Memory Charms. "Tell me everything that you're hiding,"

Lowther opened his mouth, but his throat tensed and strained soundlessly. Of course; he also bound himself against revealing any secrets.

"Where is the magical contract binding you?"

Again, the magical contract mentally restrained him. That question never worked, but it was always worth the shot. Attempting to extract the information with Legilimency wouldn't work either, as the contract's magic shielded the information from all forms of mind-reading. Only by destroying the contract would Lowther be free from its conditions, and it was surely well hidden.

" _Obliviate ad Confundo,"_

Lowther's shoulders quivered and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. There was nothing left for Harry but the clean-up.

"Go reset the memory of all security records by twenty minutes. Then disable the dungeon's escape detection charms for five minutes. Once you reactivate them, you will return to what you were doing before you heard the prisoner health alarm. After that point, you will only remember a guard coming to tell you that this boy succeeded in killing himself, and you ordered someone to dispose the body. You may put this back on,"

Harry returned Lowther his Occlumency Charm, and he placed it back in his right ankle. That broke Harry's Imperius Curse on him, but the Memory Charm and Confundus Charm had already taken their effect. With a dull nod, Nowles Lowther, Head Spook of the Ministry of Magic, walked away in the direction he came.

Harry faced the boy whose name he still didn't know. The boy regarded him with a respectable dose of caution and curiosity, but there was more about him, seen in his firm posture and the steadiness of his near-black eyes. Harry wasn't sure what it was yet, but Harry had a sense that he wouldn't be attempting to kill himself again, at least for now.

Harry walked up to him, holding up his lighted wand, the only source of light in the room. "What's your name?"

The boy did not shy away from him, did not shift a muscle; he only lifted his eyes to meet his.

"Ethan," he spoke. A clear-spoken, measured voice. "Ethan Chen,"

"Let's go," Harry said for the third time that night. "Ethan,"

* * *

Nine months ago, a wizard entered Ethan's studio apartment and immediately put him under the Imperius Curse. The wizard then handed him over to the British Ministry of Magic's Office of Intelligence. Ethan only saw him a few more times after that, mostly by chance. But he heard about him occasionally from the conversations of his captors. Now, the same wizard who made him a slave was setting him free.

Was it a trick? Was he dreaming? Was he was simply trading one captor for another? Could these be false memories being implanted in his head? Or was he already dead, and this illusion of hope is what hell is like. Of all the possibilities, the idea that he was actually being freed seemed the least likely to him. In all his time serving the Ministry's will, hope only gnawed at his sanity. Now Ethan's heart was calloused – hope was only a dull, mildly annoying itch. Still, this night was a welcome departure from the usual mind-crushing routine, and Ethan would take what it had to offer, even if it only amounted to a temporary change of scenery.

Ethan and Harry Potter winded down the passages of the Ministry's dungeons, Ethan following behind Potter's flapping grey robes. As they emerged from the dungeon entrance, the guard on duty stood up with a startle.

"Mr. Potter – something happen down there? Some men came up, looked like Spooks –"

" _Confundo,"_ Potter passed by the guard without looking at him. "Nothing interesting happened tonight," He said as they continued walking.

"Yes sir," The guard sat back down with a dazed expression. At the end of the lobby a slab of stone wall shifted aside to reveal a long flight of stairs. They climbed up the stairs and emerged through an opening onto a dark hallway lined with portraits. The dungeons were enchanted with an Anti-Disapparition Jinx; it was only once they were out of them that they would be able to leave.

Potter pulled his Invisibility Cloak from his pocket and threw it over him.

"Don't take it off of you, no matter what, or the Ministry will detect you,"

The Cloak was a dark maroon sheet of cloth adorned with numerous dull grey stars and crescent moons, as well as a few twelve-pointed suns. Once it fell over Ethan's head, the cloth became invisible before his eyes, though he could still reach out and feel its silky softness. Despite being large enough to cover him to his feet, it felt next to weightless over his head.

"Alright, we're about to Disapparate," said Potter, looking straight at him – apparently he could see through the Cloak's invisibility. "Ready?"

Ethan nodded. The last time he experienced Apparition was nine months ago, and he vomited over a posh Ministry carpet. The prospect of suffering that again was now his gravest concern.

Potter took hold of Ethan's arm through the Cloak and pulled him through the opening. The moment they stepped out, Potter swung his wand and started a turn on the spot, pulling Ethan along with him; the dark hallway of the Ministry zoomed away, and Ethan experienced something like being squeezed into a tube, then fired through an entire roller coaster ride in half a second. His bare feet suddenly hit ground and he stumbled onto all fours. The floor was white and blue checkered tile; Ethan looked up and found himself inside a bathroom.

"Oh no," said Potter, looking at the bathroom's door. Nothing appeared wrong with it, other than that it was slightly ajar. Ethan then heard someone shout from the hallway beyond the door, followed by footsteps.

"Harry!"

Potter moved swiftly, stepping out of the bathroom and closing the door shut behind him. Swaying to his feet, Ethan quickly staggered up to the door and put his ear against it. There would be time to feel nauseous later.

"Where on earth were you?!" The female voice sounded both angry and worried.

"Sorry dear, something came up,"

"And you couldn't even say something before disappearing? You didn't answer your multi-mirror,"

"Must have been out of range,"

Ethan had to assume that this was Harry Potter's wife. It was reasonably likely then that this place was Harry Potter's house. The fact that Mr. Potter wanted to keep Ethan's presence a secret from his wife, yet did not pick a more secure location to Apparate them to, told Ethan that either the Head Auror had not planned everything very well, or that the recent course of events had diverged greatly from what he originally planned.

"So where were you?"

"I…I can't say. It's classified,"

" _Classified?_ Was it a mission?"

"I can't answer that. Please understand, dear, it's for your own safety,"

"No, actually I don't understand. How does knowing less make me safer?"

While keeping his head close enough to the door to hear their conversation, Ethan angled his head and eyes around to examine the bathroom. It looked like a modern bathroom, save for the fact that it was lit by a hanging candle lantern. Still, the lantern's flame cast an even white light as strong as any home fluorescent lamp. There was a porcelain sink, a mirror above it, a cabinet on the side, and shelves containing toiletries; but the only toiletries he recognized were a pair of toothbrushes, a pair of towels, and a roll of toilet paper hanging by the toilet bowl. The rest were glass bottles of various shapes containing different-coloured liquids; they were the wizard version of bathroom products, containing labels like 'Sleekeazy's Hair Potion' and 'Rawhyde Exfoliating Wash'. There was a porcelain bathtub-shower in the corner, currently topped with a layer of frothy violet bubbles.

"– Fine then. If that's what you think, then this conversation is over,"

"Wait, where are you going?"

"The bathroom. The rest is classified information," Ethan heard footsteps approaching.

"Ginny, wait!"

The bathroom was too small, she was going to collide into him. Ethan whirled around – there was only one place to hide. He ran and threw himself back first into the bathtub. The water – or whatever solution it was – was freezing cold. He tried to open his eyes, but the stinging was too fierce; he could only hope that the layer of bubbles had reformed and would cover up the splashing. He felt something like coarse sand rub back and forth all over his skin; the solution seemed to be ferociously scrubbing him like he was a foreign body in someone's bloodstream. Despite being near weightless, the Cloak did not float upwards – it remained loosely wrapped around him like a membrane.

He lay at the bottom of the tub for an extraordinarily long minute, holding his breath, before he heard a muddled flushing sound. He waited a minute longer, and intended to stay under for as long as he could, then he heard the sound of the door closing and Mr. Potter's voice.

"Ethan?"

Ethan sat up, resurfacing through the layer of violet bubbles, which stuck to his face. He wiped them and his clinging long hair aside. Harry Potter stood at the door, and gave a relieved sigh. Ethan couldn't be sure if hiding from Potter's wife was the right choice, given how little information he had, but he made the decision on instinct, and following Mr. Potter seemed to be going well so far. The scrubbing in the water seemed to have stopped and was now replaced with a gentle massaging. The water was still freezing cold, but Ethan was used to that from the dungeon showers; he could really enjoy this bath.

"Come on, we can't stay here,"

Ethan stepped out of the bathtub. Potter pointed his wand at his dripping body. His grey scrubs grew warm until steam rose out of them; the water on his hair and skin evaporated near instantly.

"Follow me," Potter opened the bathroom door and left onto the hallway, and Ethan followed behind. They were on the upper floor of the house, and Potter led him past the stairs to the other end of the hall where there were two doors on both sides and another bathroom at the end. Potter opened the second door on the right and led him in. Potter closed the door behind him and locked it the traditional way, by turning in the door latch.

The room was dusty, like it had been abandoned for a while. Potter pointed his wand to the candle chandelier in the centre and it lighted, illuminating the room. The walls were pale grey, and the room contained the usual trappings of a person's bedroom. The most notable difference though, was that the walls held a large number of animated paintings and sketches on paper, and there was a painter's easel in the corner.

"Okay, let's see…" said Potter, more to himself than to Ethan. "Before anything else, I have to ask you something. Do you remember overhearing anything from Lowther that seemed important or secret? Or any orders that Lowther gave you personally, or any peculiar orders that you knew came from him?"

These thoughts had raced through his head while Potter and Lowther confronted each other, but Ethan could not find any information in his possession that Lowther would want to keep secret from Potter or the Ministry. He recalled discovering many blanks in his memories, but nine months of routine hacking was a long time, and he could no longer pinpoint when he discovered those blanks or what time was supposed to fill them. What memories he did have were vague and muddled together due to the mundaneness of each day, and the Imperius Curse also instilled a general dullness in its subject's mental faculties.

"No," Ethan shook his head.

"Okay…" Potter tried questioning him from another angle. "Lowther and I instructed the…dominated hackers to intercept civilian and military communications, to access satellite information…" He recited slowly, sorting through his own memories. "Identify military and industrial targets, disrupt telecommunication networks, and sabotage the control systems for the electrical power grid and other utilities. Do you remember doing anything different from this?"

Put simply, those were some of the things Ethan did as a thrall of the Ministry. They were not so different from the activities Ethan was already engaged in as a black hat before the war started. He searched his memories again, but still could not find anything out of the ordinary. Whatever he knew, Lowther blocked it with Memory Charms, and Ethan doubted he was careless enough to miss something out.

"Hmm…what could it be?" Potter mused aloud when Ethan shook his head again. "Is it even something important?"

The Ministry's Head Spook naturally had secrets he had to guard with the strictest of measures. Ethan could think of a million things Lowther would want to hide, from personal affairs to secrets about the war. It irked and unnerved Ethan to know that there was information inside him he couldn't reach because they were blocked by magic. But dwelling on it right now was useless until they found another lead.

Potter seemed to come to the same conclusion. "I don't know enough yet – and there's no time to think about it right now,"

After a long pause for deliberation, Potter continued. "Alright…I can't keep you here; Ginny will find you eventually, or the Ministry will detect you," Potter likely didn't want his wife implicated if they were to be caught by the Ministry. "…I'm going to let you go. Return you to New York City…but it won't be easy,"

So he really was being set free – or Potter could be lying. Ethan carefully guarded against any feelings of optimism.

"That won't be necessary," said Ethan. "Just put me close to any city, and I can find my own way,"

Potter looked astonished at the number of words that came out of his mouth. "I see…still, I can't do it yet. I need to find a way to bypass the Ministry's detection magic, or we'll be discovered…until then, I have to keep you somewhere safe,"

Potter started pacing left and right, then around the bedroom. "…it's the safest place…but I'll have to speak to her…tell her what happened…" He mumbled to himself. After a minute of rumination, he returned to Ethan.

"I'll be gone for a while. Until then, stay in this room. If you need to use the bathroom, you can, but remember – do not take off the Cloak," And then he Disapparated.

Potter must have thought him as not much of a threat to have given him the Cloak _and_ the ability to walk around his house. He could easily go down to the kitchen, grab a knife and…well, nothing really. Stab his family? Stab Potter when he came back? Both were terribly stupid ideas. Ethan found that he did not begrudge Potter or his family for his enslavement at the Ministry – the wizards were after all, supremely outnumbered and outmatched. Ethan was pretty sure he would do the same in Potter's place. Regardless, Ethan supposed there was likely a magical alarm somewhere to detect if there was an intruder with ill intent towards the house's family.

Ethan did not know how long Potter would take to return, so he opted to explore his surroundings first. From the open window at the end of the room, Ethan saw a peaceful outline of trees along a gentle mountain slope. He stood at the window for several minutes, simply taking in cool fresh air for the first time in ages.

Besides the paintings and the easel, there were other markings that an artist lived in this room; bottles of paint, a drawing table, various paintbrushes and pencils, a storage rack stocked with more paintings, and a bookshelf of books about painting and art. Ethan found a large sketchbook on the drawing table and read the name inked on the cover: _Albus Potter._ Ethan recognized the signs: dusty room, yet personal effects still lying about – this was the room of a dead son.

Ethan studied the animated paintings in the room. Almost all the paintings in the Ministry of Magic were realist portraits, but Albus Potter seemed to have a preference for fantastical landscapes with a hint of surrealism. Ethan was no art critic, but he found the paintings very impressive on a technical level; the lines were crisp and clean around the most intricate details. It was not quite the level of an artistic prodigy though, especially as the subject matter did not strike Ethan as particularly imaginative or thought-provoking.

The subject matter was romanticist, beautifully awe-inspiring; one painting contained a forest of trees made of clear crystal, and through a canopy of rustling glass leaves he could see a twinkling night sky. Another was a mountain range where the mountains were coloured with swirls of rainbow light from a sun with a rainbow halo. As clouds drifted over the sun, patches of light faded to reveal the mountains' snowy white peaks, stony grey slopes and brilliant emerald greenery.

Ethan found himself drawn to one painting in particular; whereas most of the paintings were delicately exquisite, this one was bold and intense. It contained a peryton: a magical creature with the head and front body of a stag, and the wings, hind body and tail of a bird. The creature was pure white with blue-tipped feathers, and it stood on the edge of a cliff, its wings spread wide. The surreal aspect of the painting was that the peryton's antlers were made of lightning bolts that stretched to an overcast sky of black clouds. The lightning trembled and frayed in the air, but it stayed connected to the peryton's head. The lightning antlers were the only source of light in the scene, as well as intermittent strokes of lightning in the background. Its feet were stained with mud, but the rest of the peryton remained strikingly white against the pressing darkness. Heavy rain beat hard on the peryton's face and wings – it was by far the most animated painting in the room – yet the creature stood tall, looking over a dark forest, where twisted branches twitched and grew, before shrinking away from the peryton's light.

Ethan returned to the sketchbook and opened it. Inside were various pencil sketches, but only the completed ones were animated. There were all manner of subjects, such as trees, houses, some swans, and even cute girls in witch's robes. That was a minor relief – Ethan was beginning to wonder if Albus was some kind of mystically detached soulful artiste.

Ethan found a completed sketch of a teenage boy in wizard robes, sitting in a trimmed grass lawn by the edge of a body of water, perhaps a pond or lake. The boy wore a thick round mop-top of dark hair, and he was busy drawing on a large sketchbook much like the one Ethan was holding. The boy looked up and directly at Ethan, then waved at him serenely. The boy promptly returned to sketching, though Ethan could only see the back of the sketchbook.

"Hmm. Hello Albus," Ethan knew that the subjects of wizard paintings weren't alive; most were only enchanted to loop certain animations. A few were more advanced, able to speak and make limited conversation, but only in ways they were enchanted to by the painter. They were, in a sense, like artificially intelligent software. They could acquire information and learn new ways to effectively pursue their directives, but they will always be bound by them, never able to be more than a two-dimensional imitation of life. Right now, Ethan was only testing the complexity of this sketch's programming; he had done that quite a bit with the knight portraits in the dungeons during times when he was free of the Imperius Curse.

The self-portrait of Albus heard him and looked up again, for a little longer this time. Then he waved at Ethan, exactly the same way as before. Ethan tried tapping at him with his finger – he did not acknowledge that action at all and simply kept on drawing. So far, he gave more response than the knights did to 'hello' and less than they did to being prodded.

"What are you drawing?"

To Ethan's surprise, Albus turned his sketchbook around and showed it to him. On it were simple, bold letters which read _'Art is the magic of expression'._ In a few seconds, Albus turned the sketchbook around and resumed drawing on it.

Ethan tried another question. "What do you do?"

Albus turned the sketchbook again. On it was now a completely different line. _'Don't wait for inspiration to strike; you must work for it'._

Ethan had an idea now of the main function of this software. He could imagine the real Albus standing before his easel trying to paint, and occasionally turning to his sketchbook propped on the drawing table to receive motivation from himself. Its voice command recognition could use some work, though.

Before Ethan could conduct any more tests, he heard a faint 'pop' behind him. He placed down the sketchbook and turned around to Harry Potter.

"Here," Potter handed him a folded sheet of parchment paper. With a strange foreboding, Ethan unfolded it. It was a letter, bearing a peculiar coat of arms at the letterhead: the shield (or escutcheon) was divided into four, each section containing a different colour and animal. Top left was red with a gold lion, top right green with a silver snake, bottom right blue with a bronze eagle, and bottom left yellow with a black badger. They all surrounded a glossy black capital 'H' in the centre.

Below the coat of arms was the following, handwritten with straight, stately letters:

 _HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

 _Headmistress: Minerva McGonagall_

 _Order of Merlin, First Class_

 _Dear Mr. Chen,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Term begins on 1 September._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Minerva McGonagall_

 _Headmistress_


	4. Chapter 4 - Start of Term

Chapter 4 – Start of Term

Rose Weasley woke up regularly at five minutes to seven in the morning, five minutes before the time set in her alarm clock, then left her room for her morning routine. Upon entering the bathroom, Rose noticed that the sink was wet, which meant that someone woke up earlier than her today, which was not often.

She went to the sink to wash up. It might just be her imagination, but some of the bottles on the shelves appeared to be slightly out of place, like someone had sorted through them looking for something. Did Lily rummage for her facial cream in the dark again? Honestly, all it takes is a wand flick to light the lantern. Rose reached into the shelf for her tiny jar of self-made toothpaste, and scooped it with a small spoon onto her toothbrush.

While brushing her teeth, Rose looked into the mirror and recognized that her hair was a tangled, bushy mess as usual at this time. After rinsing her mouth, she grabbed a brush and tried to rein it down, to mild success. Once all her hair was at least pointing downwards, she exited the bathroom and turned right to Lily's room. She gave the door three regular raps; it was her signal to Lily that it was her. With no response forthcoming, Rose let herself in.

The walls were light green and the floor light wood. The room was _mostly_ tidy, but Lily's desk was cluttered with un-kept stationery and on her nightstand she had an empty cup that she didn't return to the kitchen – Rose was already fighting the urge to clean up for her.

Lily was sleeping sprawled out upon her bed, her quilt sliding off her knees. Her alarm clock had just rung, and she evidently went straight back to sleep after stopping it. Rose went up and prodded her in the shoulder. "Wake up, Lily. It's time for our run,"

Lily babbled something incoherently and slowly sat up, tucking her tousled hair behind her. Both Rose and Lily's hair were the same shade of bright red, but Lily's hair fell just past her shoulder blades, while Rose's was cut near the base of the neck. Lily's hair was naturally straight with a loose wavy perm, while Rose's was naturally wavy. Lastly, Lily's eyes were a stunning emerald green that drew comment from everyone she met, while Rose's eyes were blue.

"Happy birthday, Lily," said Rose. She pulled out her wand – twelve inches, hazel wood, and the core of a phoenix feather – from her shorts pocket and aimed back at her own room. _"Accio present,"_ A small wrapped box flew out from inside and landed in her palm.

"Oh, thank you!" That roused Lily to consciousness. She quickly unwrapped her present and pulled out Rose's gift: a scented candle she made from boiling the Sun Lilies in the garden with her cauldron, then extracting the wax and essential oil. She left some of the glowing petals in the candle mixture as it was cooling; the result was a milky white candle with glowing orange petals embedded within, so it always gave off a little light, and could be spotted in the dark.

"It's beautiful," Lily cooed and threw herself at Rose with a hug.

Rose hugged back, but felt a little guilty. "It didn't cost nearly as much as your gift, though," For Rose's sixteenth birthday yesterday, Lily gave Rose a beautiful raven-feather quill with a silver nib and handle. Their birthdays were only a day apart, but Rose was a year older.

"You made this yourself, though," Lily placed the candle on her desk. "That's worth a lot," Lily attempted to stifle it, but she let out a small yawn.

"Did you sleep late last night?"

Lily's mood deflated suddenly. "Yeah. I thought I heard Albus's door open in the middle of the night. I was just hearing things, but…couldn't sleep after that,"

Rose regretted asking that question. "Well you can skip today if you're still tired,"

Lily shook her head. "No, I'm good; aren't you always telling me to not skip a day even if gnomes eat my shoes?" She stood up and stretched her back.

Rose did say that; but what she had meant was not to let minor inconveniences become excuses, or you'll never stop having them. "Well, alright then," Lily started pulling on her socks, so Rose returned to her room and put hers on as well. They were already in T-shirts and shorts suitable for running, so they were at the front of the house ready to go in short order.

"Alright, time to burn off yesterday's cake!" Lily had a way of always bouncing back – she tied her hair in a ponytail and cheered as they hopped on the spot to warm up.

Hugo had baked way too much cake for Rose's birthday yesterday, and it was only through Lily's courageous appetite that they were able to finish half of it (the other half they were leaving to Uncle Harry). However, eaten cakes don't just Vanish into non-being – it was only through rigorous exercise that Lily was able to maintain her stunning figure despite her frivolous love of sweets. They were of the same height, but while Rose was slender, Lily was shapely in a way that made seventh-year girls jealous.

They began their usual route, jogging up along the stream near their house, then along the forest line of the mountain woods. Lily led the charge, while Rose did her best to keep breathing. Rose may be the one keeping Lily on regimen, but Lily was the one training her. Lily bounced up the mountain slope like a cheerful bird in flagrant ignorance of gravity's authority. If she weren't pacing for Rose, Lily would have bounded out of sight already at twice the pace.

They rushed down the slope and into the outskirts of Hogsmeade. They passed several rows of little thatched cottages, and jogged up beside the shimmering white barrier doming the village, concealing and protecting them from Muggles. They ran along the circumference of the barrier, a scenic but awfully bumpy route. After thirty minutes of jogging, they turned into the village and cut through its High Street, arrayed with shops for all the village's needs, from apothecaries to an owl post office. At this early hour, most shops were not yet open, and there was no one else on the streets. The only movement other than them came from Ministry posters pasted on every shop window, carrying messages like 'Report all suspicious activity' and 'Join the militia'.

Lily made them sprint down the final stretch back to their home, such that Rose's legs were like lead as she wobbled up the front porch. As they re-entered the sitting room, they spotted James sitting in a couch, listening intently to the wooden radio beside the fireplace.

"Don't sweat on the floor," James said tersely without looking at them. He stared fixedly into the fire as he listened to the Wizard Wireless Network. James was seventeen, tall, and bore a strong resemblance to his father, but with brown eyes and neater side-parted black hair. The resemblance was only enhanced by his dire expression.

"Morning to you too, James," said Lily cheerily as she undid her ponytail and started her cooling down stretches. Rose conjured a pair of towels and passed one to Lily to pat out their sweat. Rose listened to the WWN's news bulletin as she idly did her own cooling stretches.

"– All owl postal services for civilians are discontinued until further notice –" declared the radio in an impassive tone.

"Did I just hear that right?" exclaimed Lily. "We can't send letters anymore?"

"Quiet," said James.

This was not a good sign; it meant that the Muggles were growing more proficient at intercepting their communications. The Muggles were concentrating on holding England, so Hogsmeade was safe for the moment, but it was a very fragile and guilty sense of security.

A head of curly brown hair protruded from the kitchen doorway. "Lily, Rose, you're back – breakfast is ready," said Hugo. "Happy birthday, Lily,"

Lily beamed. "Thank you, Hugo," Rose's brother was a year younger than her, and a gentle heart face stuck in a tall, lanky body. He was a couple inches below James but likely to overtake him someday. Lily and Rose entered the kitchen, which had a lighter tone than the deep red sitting room, with cream-coloured walls and mostly white floor.

"Happy birthday, Lily. Sit down, you two, you can shower after eating," Rose's Aunt Ginny spotted them and levitated several plates of sausage, toast and eggs to the dining table. In the centre of the long table was a small round marble cake, made of random patches and swirls of every colour imaginable, from cherry red to a suspiciously murky purple.

"Oh no," said Rose. "I see a lot of bad patches,"

"Oh, that's just the surface," Hugo assured her. "The only bad flavours are bogey, maggots, and aluminium foil,"

"That's no fun," whined Lily. "And maggots aren't a bad flavour. They taste like cheese,"

James entered the kitchen and grimaced at the patchy cake.

"What on earth did you tell Hugo to make this time?" He rounded on Lily irritably.

"I-It's cake made with Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans," Lily replied.

"And you didn't tell him to _take out_ the awful flavours?" James said critically. "We have to eat this thing too, you know,"

Lily shrunk a little from James' reproach. "I-It's not that bad an idea, is it? You guys don't like Every Flavour Beans?" She looked to Hugo and Rose worriedly.

Hugo responded without hesitation. "Of course we do. We already have normal cake for everyone else's birthday. I enjoy baking the cake ideas you come up with,"

"Umm," Rose was more conflicted. Some flavours of Every Flavour Beans were just nauseating to chew on, but at least one could swallow the beans down. They were going to need a mouthful of tea to do the same with a slice of cake. But ultimately the food itself was just plain cake and there were delicious flavours mixed in as well like coconut, salmon and chicken cordon bleu. It would probably taste better without the bad flavours, but that was how Lily liked it, and it was her birthday cake.

"Y-Yeah. It's one of the world's most popular sweets, after all. It's definitely exciting," said Rose clumsily.

James glared into Hugo and Rose, like he could tell they were lying. "You're enabling her tactlessness,"

"Sit down, James. It's Lily's birthday," Aunt Ginny arrived at the table with the teapot. "You don't have to eat it if you don't want to,"

Aunt Ginny was not exactly right though; they _had_ to eat Lily's cake, and they _had_ to enjoy it, or Lily would tell Hugo to make something simpler next time. Lily enjoyed all cakes, so it would be an easy compromise, but it wouldn't be her first choice. The worst thing they could do was refuse the cake, or eat it with obvious pain: to make Lily eat her cake alone would just be horrible. So everyone took a slice of cake in the end, including James.

They sat down at the table and started on their breakfast. She looked around the kitchen, her spirit slightly dampened.

"Where's Dad?" Lily asked her mother.

Aunt Ginny sliced her sausage into fine pieces. "He's still here, but said he had work early today, so he's leaving,"

After a moment of silent wishing, Lily blew out the candles of her cake. A while after that, Uncle Harry entered the kitchen, already dressed in his work robes. "Morning, everyone,"

"Your breakfast is on the counter," said Aunt Ginny.

"Thank you, dear," Since the war, Rose's uncle moved and behaved like he was not entirely there; flitting in and out like a shadow, speaking low and with as few words as possible. Even before the war, Uncle Harry had days when he was barely in the room, usually after a difficult Auror mission. Nowadays, it was like he didn't like to be in his own house.

He looked into the steel lunch box that Aunt Ginny prepared for him, then opened the kitchen icebox and took out the remaining half of Rose's birthday cake. It was a fluffy cake spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg, with walnuts and raisins mixed in. Uncle Harry pushed a slice into the box.

"Take some of today's cake as well," said Aunt Ginny.

Uncle Harry seemed to ponder something. "Alright," He let his wife put a slice of Every Flavour Cake into his lunch box. "Happy birthday, Lily,"

"Thank you, Daddy," Lily perked up a little to smile for her father.

"Ron and Hermione say happy birthday, too," he said after a pause. "And to you, too, Rose,"

Hugo stirred up from the mention of their parents. "You heard from Mom and Dad? How are they doing?"

"They're fine,"

"What else did they say?" asked Hugo.

Uncle Harry looked away for a bit, then shook his head. "Nothing else," He backed away from the table. "I'll be back later to take you to Hogwarts," He then exited the kitchen, but he did not leave out the front door; instead Rose heard him climb back up the stairs. Maybe he forgot something.

Hugo's face fell and he picked at his food. Rose didn't know if there was anything she could say to cheer her brother, and wasn't sure what to think herself. Lily's parents and hers were still at odds; her mother couldn't be wrong, but neither could her uncle. If she knew more about what was happening, she could make a proper judgement, but Uncle Harry only gave the vaguest information possible.

"Hey Hugo," said Lily, one cheek puffed with cake. "This is really good! Maggot-flavour Beans are so much better in cake form. Rose, have you tried the maggot part?"

She had, but she preferred not to dwell on the experience. "Yeah. I noticed that the Wriggling Charm from the Beans retains in cake form,"

Hugo smiled. "Actually, it wears off, but I re-applied it to the batter,"

Lily made a muffled noise of approval, then swallowed. "Hey Rose, what do you think this part is? It's got a sort of clam-like taste with a lot of garlic,"

"Um, clams with garlic?"

"It's escargot,"

Lily and Rose played a game where they tried to guess the flavour behind each mysterious colour. And Hugo, already knowing all the cake's secrets, revealed the truth and kept their score. Lily won, of course, but the important thing was that they managed to finish the cake somehow.

All they were all finishing their plates, Aunt Ginny stood up and levitated her plate to the sink, where the sponge lifted itself to start cleaning. "I have to go now, there's a press conference I have to attend. Make sure you're all ready by the time your father returns," With that, she left the house.

After floating their own plates to sink, Lily and Rose had nine hours to spend before their return to Hogwarts. They whiled away the rest of the morning by feeding and playing with the Potter family owls that lived in the attic, as well as cleaning out their perches. They only had two owls, since they were rather high-maintenance animals to take care of, especially for a family with no house-elves and both parents working. Rose's family had one, currently with her parents, but they had not used it since going to London, likely for security reasons.

After a small lunch, Hugo, Lily and Rose spent their afternoon in the garden. Hugo and Rose tended after the plants they were each raising, spraying on fertilizing and pest control potions. They then joined Lily in de-gnoming, which consisted of finding gnomes in their burrows and hurling them as far possible as over the hedge. Both activities were sweaty work, so they had stayed in their morning attire, using only the cleaning charm _Scourgify_ to keep from becoming too grungy.

With nightfall approaching, Lily and Rose went upstairs; Rose was intending to grab her things to finally shower, when Lily turned to Albus's door instead of her own.

She turned the handle but found it locked. "Huh? Why is it locked? Hello? Dad?" She knocked on the door to no answer.

Rose certainly found it strange; Albus's door had not been locked before. At least, not after what happened. "Why do you want to go in?"

"I err, I need to get Albus's fifth-year books to pack my things," said Lily sheepishly.

Rose made a face of disapproval. "You haven't packed yet?"

"Err, no," Lily pulled out her wand – twelve inches, alder wood, and phoenix feather core. _"Alohomora,"_ The door unlocked and she went in.

Most households had a rule that doors were locked for a reason, so unless there was an emergency, they shouldn't be opened with the Unlocking Charm. "Lily," Rose said reproachfully, then followed her inside.

Albus's room burrowed a deep hole in her heart. There was a fine film of dust over the drawing table, the bookshelf, and the top of the paintings. Rose wanted to clean the room, but then felt like she shouldn't, because there would be no point. Yet she couldn't bear to see the room collecting dust either. There didn't seem to be a right thing to do, which to Rose, was the worst kind of situation.

" _Accio luggage,"_ Lily summoned her luggage trunk in from her room and in front of the bookshelf. She pulled out Albus's copy of _The Standard Book of Spells – Grade 5_ , was about to drop it in her bag, then she stopped and stared at the cover, wiping away the dust.

"You can use my fifth-year books if you want," Rose said gently. "You don't have to use Albus's,"

"No, I want to. I've always used Albus's books," And Albus's books were James's before he passed them down. Lily flipped through the book's pages; they were mostly clean, with some sparse notes left by James. "There aren't any doodles," Lily said sadly. Albus never started his fifth year.

Rose and Albus were in the same year, and sometimes sat together in the classes they shared. Rose remembered at times admonishing him about dazing off or doodling during class. She told him that he shouldn't deface his book as Lily was going to use it.

Lily turned around, apparently looking for something. "Hey, I don't see Albus's sketchbook around here. Do you know where it is?"

Rose scanned around the room herself. "No, but it should be around here, unless someone else took it,"

They started searching the room. Rose checked the cabinet under the drawing table while Lily went towards the bed in the far corner. Rose was busy opening drawers of art supplies, but suddenly she thought she heard a faint 'thump', like a single footstep over the wooden floor.

"Hey, did you hear that?" said Lily.

Ethan had a hard time sleeping last night for many reasons, not least of which being the unimaginable future awaiting him. Albus's bed attempted to swallow Ethan's back; it was an overwhelming change from the thin hard mat back in the dungeon. Aside from one trip to the bathroom, Ethan spent all night and day examining the things in Albus's room, from the art supplies to some of his books.

He once attempted to lift the Invisibility Cloak slightly off him, but found it to be magically stuck like glue to the top of his head. The Cloak's ethereal fabric also never failed to slip away from him when he tried to grab it, so neither could he flip the Cloak over him.

Harry Potter dropped by in the morning to give Ethan what was to be his breakfast and lunch. It took seconds to connect names to the foods he was looking at – for nine months, the only food he ever saw was stew with an accompanying slice of fruit for necessary vitamins. The stew was decent, but it stopped having a taste after a couple of months. The sausage, eggs and toast in Potter's lunch box were a simple, irreplaceable pleasure that nearly choked him. They helped to ease his taste buds back into function before facing the sensory overload of the cakes.

The walnut raisin spice cake was earthy in taste, yet with a fluffy, airy texture; a harmonious combination that was flavourful but not dense. The other cake though, was like a pride parade in his mouth sporadically broken up by riot police that punched him in the face. One moment he would be tasting salmon roe and raspberry pie, then some silvery portion would give him shivers like a stun gun to the teeth.

But of all the madness of he had experienced this day, the most unexpected in this strange new chapter of his life was having two girls suddenly barge into his room in sweaty T-shirts and shorts. He stood at the far end of the room, between the bed and the easel, as the two girls talked. Then the long-haired girl approached the bed and he moved a little too fast out of the way.

"Hey, did you hear that?" said the girl, hearing his footstep. She was barely more than a foot from him, and looking directly at his foot.

* * *

Ethan had the steel lunch box in one hand and Albus's sketchbook in the other. He had been testing more interactions with the latter when the two girls entered. It was a risky move, but he had to do something quickly or the girl would soon walk into him. The moment the long-haired girl glanced away, he planted the sketchbook on the floor, by the girl's foot, then backed away. The girl, possibly feeling a draft, looked down and spotted it.

"Here it is. It was right under me," the long-haired girl picked it up and returned to her companion. She had a sweet and buoyant voice, a thing literally unheard of in the Ministry dungeons; it sent a jolt to his memory that young women still existed in the world.

"Huh. I was sure I checked the floor," said the short-haired girl. Her voice carried an even-tempered, bookish charm. "So…you're going to take it to school?" she asked in a concerned tone.

"Um, yeah," the long-haired girl lightly caressed the sketchbook's cover. "…Should I?"

"…Sure," the short-haired girl replied.

The long-haired girl carefully placed the sketchbook into her luggage trunk. Slowly, the two of them lowered books from Albus's shelf into the bag.

" _Depulso luggage,"_ Once they were done, the long-haired girl sent her trunk back into the room across from this one.

"Well, I'm going to shower now," said the short-haired girl.

"Yeah, me too,"

It occurred to Ethan that he could easily watch one of the girls shower with his Invisibility Cloak…but he wasn't courting suicide at this particular moment. He was pretty certain that would trigger the house's alarm system, and Harry Potter would swiftly end his life. And just as the man was on his mind, Harry Potter Apparated at the doorway, appearing from thin air in a whirl of black robes.

"Dad!"

"Uncle Harry,"

Mr. Potter looked at what were apparently his daughter and niece, and then directly at Ethan.

"Lily, Rose – when a door is locked in this house, there's a reason for it. You don't want others entering your room when it's locked, do you?" Mr. Potter stared down at the two girls. His displeasure was quiet but palpably imposing.

"I-I know, I just wanted to get Albus's books," mumbled the girl Ethan could now identify as Lily Potter. "Why was the room locked?" She asked timidly.

"Because I locked it,"

"Sorry, Dad,"

"We're really sorry, Uncle," The two girls bowed their heads in remorse.

Mr. Potter glanced at Ethan. "Well, just don't do it again," His expression softened on the girls. "Anyway –" He reached his hand out down the hall and a folded sheet of dirty yellow parchment soared into his palm. "This is for you, Lily," He entered the room and offered it to her.

Lily gasped as she received it. "The Marauders' Map!" Curious, Ethan angled around her and saw to his confusion that the parchment was blank. "You're giving it to me?" Her face lifted with pure, wide-eyed delight.

"I think you're old enough now to not abuse it too badly. At least not as badly as James did," said Mr. Potter.

Ethan was under the impression that you were never too old to abuse power in a very bad way, but thought it was hardly the time to voice his objection.

"This is amazing, Dad!" Lily jumped into her father's chest with a tight, loving hug. Mr. Potter patted her on the head with a light smile. It was the first smile Ethan had ever seen on the Auror's face.

"Remember, to activate it you need to –"

Lily was already ahead of him. She released him and tapped the parchment with her wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," She recited.

The parchment surface bloomed with sprawling black ink. Lily unfolded the parchment and its various adjoining flaps; lines and dots flooded the paper, drawing an intricate map of what appeared to be an enormous building and its surrounding grounds. After the map was fully drawn, dozens of dots moved around within it, each dot with a tiny appending caption. Ethan did not dare edge closer with Mr. Potter's eye on him, but he had a likely idea of what the dots and captions were.

"Isn't this amazing, Rose? You can see everyone in here," Lily was practically hopping in place. "Look, there's Professor Longbottom and his wife in the hospital wing –"

"Oh my goodness," The girl who could only be Rose Weasley reached out and covered a portion of the map with her hands. "This map is amazing but…should we really have this?" She asked her uncle.

"We, Rose?" Lily raised her eyebrows at her with a teasing grin.

"W-Well," Rose stuttered. "Sorry – it _is_ yours,"

"I'm just joking," Lily playfully bumped Rose with her elbow. "Hmm, but wait…" Lily closed the map and tapped her chin in it. "A prefect shouldn't be using the Marauder's Map – the passphrase clearly says that it's only for those up to no good,"

Rose's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Maybe I should confiscate it then,"

Lily gasped dramatically and guarded the map close to her chest. "You just want to use it for yourself. You'll be the terror of the halls! No one shall break curfew under your watch!"

Without warning, Rose extended two fingers and poked Lily in the side. Lily squealed and hopped away.

"Let me see the map," Rose advanced on her, smiling playfully. Lily darted behind her father for defence, who remained completely stationary. Rose lunged around Mr. Potter and tickled Lily again. Lily launched a counter-assault, earning some yelps from Rose, but with one hand clutching the map, she was outmatched.

"Ahhh!" Lily screamed and fled the room with Rose at her heels. Their musical laughter careened away down the hall.

The bed was unnaturally comfortable, the food was overwhelmingly delicious, but none of it was nearly as jarring as Lily and Rose. Their breathtaking beauty and playfulness was to Ethan, just something outside of possible reality, even more so as it shone through the terrible pain of loss. They seemed like alien beings to him, as beautifully surreal as Albus's paintings; though it would be more appropriate to say that Ethan was the alien in their midst.

Mr. Potter glanced at the door and it locked shut. He flourished his wand at the ground.

" _Teleapporé luggage,"_ A large wooden trunk teleported before them, similar to Lily's trunk. Wizards never needed to bother making modern trolley cases with wheels and extendable handles due to their wands; it was just one of many antiquities they were able to live with because magic gave them so much individual power. The trunk looked newly-bought; it opened and the stacks of books and toiletries within looked new as well.

"I've bought you the supplies you'll need," said Potter. "I don't know how long it will take to find what I need to let you go safely…until then, you have to do your best to blend in,"

There was a very obvious problem with that. "But I can't use magic,"

"There are Squibs attending Hogwarts now," said Potter.

Ethan had not heard of this before from his eavesdropping. Squibs were persons born to wizard parents, but who did not possess any ability to cast magic, like an ordinary human. "Why?" Ethan asked.

Potter considered for a moment if he should be answering his questions. "Most Squibs integrate into Muggle society, but some stay and go to a Squib School in Cambridge. The school was captured, and most of the faculty have defected, so Hogwarts is the only school accepting Squibs now,"

Potter pointed his wand to Albus's wardrobe; the clothes inside folded neatly as they flew into the trunk. The last to go in were several sets of hooded black robes with red lining and a gold-and-red crest over the left chest bearing a lion.

"Albus's clothes should fit you…you're about the same size," With a wand flick, the red lining of the robes changed from red to dull grey and the crests vanished. "Put these on. Quickly,"

First, the Invisibility Cloak lifted just over his head like a tarp tent and Potter teleported away the steel lunch box. Then a set of clothes levitated from the trunk and Ethan took them in his hands. Not minding Potter's eye, Ethan changed into a white buttoned shirt, a plain grey tie, a charcoal grey V-neck jumper, black trousers, black dress shoes, and grey-lined black robes. Albus's clothes did fit him, though if they hadn't, Potter could have easily corrected them anyway. Potter vanished away Ethan's scrubs. The Invisibility Cloak fluttered back over Ethan's head.

"Your robe pockets and sleeves are enchanted with extra space and nothing will slip out of them," Ethan put an arm inside a sleeve and felt a cavernous hard compartment within like a suitcase.

Next Potter aimed his wand at Ethan's head. "I'm going to cut your hair now. Unfortunately, I only know how to do one haircut by wand," Great blades of air rushed past Ethan's head and chopped his hair all at once. Ethan touched around his new haircut; it was short, similar to how he used to keep it, and similar to Potter's hair, but shorter and more spiky.

Potter vanished Ethan's cut hair off his clothes and the floor. "One last thing," He pulled something from one of the many pouches on his belt. It was an Occlumency Charm, exactly like the one Lowther had. Potter gave him the golden eye-like badge.

"Wear this on your body at all times. It will protect you from all mental magic, so no one can find out who you are,"

Ethan bent down and pinned the Charm to his ankle, as Lowther had done. It stuck on as if with adhesive tape. He felt rather like he had just been equipped for a dangerous mission. The Cloak lowered back down to cover him.

Potter pulled out a gold pocket watch – slightly dented in the back – from his trousers and checked the time. "It's time," Potter teleported the trunk away for the time being. "Remember, keep a low profile. Don't let anyone know you're a Muggle. Let's go,"

They left Albus's room and went down the stairs into the living room. They met Lily, Rose and two more students, all of them in Hogwarts uniform like Ethan, but with a number of differences. The girls wore black skirts instead of trousers. Lily and an older boy who was clearly Harry Potter's son had red-lined robes, a lion-bearing crest and a red-and-yellow striped tie. He also had a small shield badge above the crest – red with gold trim and emblazoned with a lion and a capital 'H'. Rose wore a robe with deep blue lining, an eagle-bearing crest, and a tie of blue and silver stripes. She had a similar badge over her crest – blue with bronze trim, another eagle, with a capital 'P'. The curly-haired boy beside her wore a robe of yellow lining, a badger-bearing crest and a striped tie of yellow and black.

They gathered in a half circle before Mr. Potter, each of them lugging their own trunk. Lily also carried a cage bearing a barn owl. For an instant Ethan feared the owl looked straight at him, then it gave a short screech and stared elsewhere.

"There's no need to bring Autumn – we're not allowed to send letters anymore," said Potter's son to Lily.

"Well, that law might change," said Lily defensively. "And Dad has his own owl,"

"What if he needs to send two letters at once? He needs them more we do,"

"No need to worry, James. I can just use the Owl Post Office in that case," said Mr. Potter. "Everyone ready?"

"Yes, Father,"

"Why are we going by Portkey again?" Lily whined. "Hogwarts is literally ten minutes away,"

"Because their security measures are tightened now," replied Mr. Potter. "No one can gain access to Hogwarts unless they've been transported by this letter," He pulled out a yellowy parchment envelope with a red wax seal, stamped with Hogwarts' escutcheon. Everyone held on to an edge of the letter. Taking their cue, Ethan crept up between Mr. Potter and his son and touched the letter's underside, the tip of his finger probably visible but unseen.

Ethan scanned the faces of the children. James looked serious, contemplating something. The boy beside Rose held the envelope like he dreaded its contents. Rose was calm, while Lily's gaze wandered restlessly in the silence.

Mr. Potter checked his pocket watch again. "Three…two…one,"

It was like Apparition, but worse. An invisible hook grabbed Ethan by the gut and pulled him through a whirlwind of streaking colours. Ethan hit solid dirt hard on all fours and nose. His groan of pain was drowned out among a couple others. Once again he found himself barely retaining the contents of his stomach.

Ethan stood up gingerly and beheld an enormous, expansive castle several yards away, the likes of which Ethan had never seen in life, photo or fiction. The building stretched left and right as far as he could see, spreading down the great slope it stood upon. Wings and extensions grew in a clustered, rambling fashion to create an asymmetrical, sprawling complex. High above, countless towers speared at the night sky. The walls were of aged, pale sandy brick, lit up against the darkness by spots of windows glowing with warm light, and by fiery sconces on either side of tall oaken double doors.

"Goodbye, Father," James had landed on his feet and moved immediately for the doors, leaving his trunk behind. Ethan looked around; all around the slope leading up to the castle, students and accompanying parents were warping onto the dirt footpath or the grassy lawn, some painfully. The students ranged from tiny preteens to older teenagers. They left their luggage trunks behind as they climbed up, and in a moment their trunks would disappear.

"Ugh," grumbled the curly-haired boy, staggering up from a half-crouch. "Goodbye, Uncle Harry," Rose, who teetered slightly on her feet, said the same.

Lily wobbled up from her knees and hugged her father. "Bye, Dad. Please stay safe, okay?"

"You, too," Potter stroked her hair. The three children ascended up the dirt footpath. Potter let go of the parchment envelope and it burned away in the air. He waited until the children had entered through the front doors before taking the Invisibility Cloak off Ethan and back into his sleeve. He then teleported Ethan's trunk back from wherever he stored it.

"Thank you," Potter said to nothing in particular at his feet, and Ethan's luggage vanished again. He turned up to Ethan.

"Just follow everyone up the front doors, then the large doors to the right," he said coolly. With more than a little trembling in his heart, Ethan started up the path to the castle, to enter a veritable nest of wizards.

"And Ethan," Harry Potter said after he had made a few steps. Ethan turned his head back to him.

"Good luck,"

The castle's giant front doors were open, and led into a vast warm-lit hall larger than a ballroom. The walls that reached several storeys high were decked with animated paintings, most of them realist landscapes and portraits of wizards, some classical or baroque. Before him was a gleaming marble staircase that winged away left and right into unseen hallways. To his right was another set of double doors, with a steady stream of students entering.

Through this door Ethan entered into the single most magical place he had seen yet. The air above him was filled with thousands of floating candles, bathing every corner of the long hall with smooth warm light. He looked higher into the vaulted ceiling; it appeared to be enchanted with a three-dimensional projection of the night sky – he could just see the hall's gothic arches tinted dark among the stars, like they were holding up the heavens.

Before Ethan was a long horizontal wooden table, seated with students in grey-lined robes like himself. After that were four longer tables stretching down the length of the hall, which from left to right sat students in red, yellow, blue, and green-lined robes. At the far end of the hall was another horizontal table, on a raised platform, where a long row of adult wizards sat, each in their own style of robes. In the middle of that table was a golden, high-backed chair, seating an elderly witch with a wide-brimmed witch's hat. The witch gazed stolidly at the bustling crowd of students, and Ethan could have sworn that her gaze travelled down the hall to rest directly on him.

"Watch where you're standing, Squib," Ethan stumbled forwards from a rough shove in the shoulder. A burly student in green-lined robes walked past him with a squinty look that was meant to be threatening. Ethan moved out from the front of the doorway, approaching the closer horizontal table.

"Ugh, I hate walking around these Squibs," Ethan overheard a pair of students in yellow-lined robes. "Can't we put them somewhere else?"

Then Ethan spotted someone from the Squib table waving at him. It was a student around Ethan's age, a little portly with dark brown curtained hair and oval glasses. "Hey! Are you the new fifth-year?" He checked down at a scroll of parchment in his hand. "…Ethan Chen?"

"Yes," That was the first word he spoke to someone his own age in a very long time. "That's me," Ethan approached the welcoming boy. He noted a grey shield badge bearing a capital 'P' on his robes.

"I'm Timothy Bennett," he stood up and introduced himself with an extended hand. Ethan shook it. Timothy gave a soft and ordinary grip – no manipulative intentions behind it.

The guy who sat across from Timothy shifted aside and turned half around. "Varun Sandhu," He gave a short wave. He was a scrawnier, broody-looking guy, with a light brown skin tone and curly dark hair. Ethan sat down with them.

"So, how do you know my name?" he eyed the parchment Timothy was holding. He already had a fair idea.

"Ah, well, I'm a prefect, so I got this list of new students to show to their dorm rooms," Timothy waved the parchment. "You're rooming with Varun and I, so just follow him later,"

Ethan wanted to confirm that his trunk was in there, but he was afraid asking would make him sound stupid.

"You're American, right?" asked Varun beside him.

"Yes," It was clear enough from his General American accent.

"Where from?" Timothy asked amicably.

Ah, small talk. Ethan was well out of practice in this, and it was never his forte either. "New York City, Manhattan,"

"Really?" Timothy's head bobbed up with interest.

"Chinatown?" said Varun. Timothy looked aghast at his friend's presumptuousness.

Ethan smirked. "How did you guess?"

"Oh, you know, just luck,"

"How long have you been in Britain?"

Ethan considered before answering. "Nine months,"

"Nine months," echoed Varun. "Were you fleeing the war in U.S.? How did you get over? I thought the Transatlantic Floo Connection was cut off,"

"Varun, that's a little too much. Ethan, you don't have to answer that,"

"I flew with my father on broomstick," That 'father' was actually Harry Potter.

"Over the Atlantic? That's mental!" exclaimed Timothy. "I don't even know what the dangers are, but I know it's mental!"

Ethan was knocked out during that journey, so he couldn't say either, but it did take nearly a whole day, and he woke up freezing to his bones.

The influx of students had stopped for a while now. Then from the doors entered an elderly wizard with balding hair and a protruding round stomach. In his arms he carried a four-legged stool on which sat a black, wrinkly witch's hat. Behind him followed a long line of students in pure black robes who must be first-years, judging by their small, nervous faces. The procession went around the Squib table, past the table of green-lined robes, and came to a stop in a row before the raised platform.

Including the first-years and the twenty-one Squibs, Ethan did some rough counting and estimated the student body at about four hundred and thirteen. And this school was, to Ethan's knowledge, the only wizarding school for all of the British Isles. _There really aren't that many wizards._

The entire hall of chattering students fell silent and watched. The fat wizard climbed the platform, placed the stool and hat before the jittery first-years and stood back. Ethan could not see much from the other end of the hall, but he did see the hat's tip start swaying before a gruff voice filled the room with song:

 _In an ancient time of knights and kings,_

 _Four great mages joined together,_

 _To build a school of magical learning,_

 _So their wisdom may last forever._

 _The founders were unlikely friends,_

 _As different as sky from the sea._

 _Each had their own style, means, and ends,_

 _To make their students as best they could be._

 _Each had a House of favoured pupils_

 _Where they honed their common gifts._

 _A school challenged by difference, united in goal,_

 _Until apart the founders did drift._

 _Before one parted, the four had a chat:_

 _When they were gone, what of their Houses then?_

 _For their last act together, they made a hat –_

 _To sort out the students who were most like them._

 _Brave Gryffindor! Renowned for his valour,_

 _His jolly humour and thirst for adventure._

 _Justice was the path he most favoured,_

 _But many a time he found that path unclear._

 _Kind Hufflepuff! Enduring and never selfish;_

 _With a great love of art and finer things._

 _Family was the thing she most cherished,_

 _Yet she had not the wit to stop her friends from dividing._

 _Calm Ravenclaw! A genius did people perceive,_

 _But owed more to her open mind and sense of wonder._

 _Truth at all costs, did she firmly believe,_

 _Until the day that cost was her daughter._

 _Sly Slytherin! Few could deny his mysterious charm._

 _He understood people more than they knew him ever._

 _Power did he seek – the means to all good and harm;_

 _Alas, how powerful could he be, afraid to love others?_

 _In your House you will find your friends and guild,_

 _But let not your own flags cloud your view._

 _For only together did the founders build_

 _This great castle that stands before you._

 _With every new dawn, a new darkness arises,_

 _Our foes are stronger now than they have ever been._

 _Build your strengths, cover your weaknesses –_

 _Let the Sorting now begin!_

* * *

There was a long silence after the Sorting Hat stopped singing. Then Professor McGonagall in her golden chair clapped, and entire hall followed suit. Lily applauded with everyone else, but she did not particularly enjoy it – the Sorting Hat's songs used to be so funny and charming, but this year's song and the last had been dire warnings.

"Wow, that was quite a downer," said Delfina, sitting across from Lily. "But less so than last year's song,"

Last year's song was rather grim as well, but Lily did not remember much of it, as she was still torn up at the time from Albus's death.

"It's not much of a song, more like a poem. A bad one," commented Jessamine, who sat beside Delfina. "Also, did the Hat just imply that Gryffindors are dumb?"

There was quite a lot of angry muttering across the Great Hall, probably with similar complaints about the Hat's lyrics. Lily was simply surprised; she knew Slytherin had many faults, but she always thought of the other founders as nearly flawless heroes. To think that they all failed at the one thing they most believed in…

"Ackerman, Darius," called Professor Slughorn, reading aloud from a scroll of parchment which he sat over his large belly like it was a table. The Sorting had begun; a small boy stepped forward from the line of first-years and sat on the stool. Slughorn lowered the Hat over the boy's head, covering his ears and half his face. The Sorting Hat mumbled to itself for a couple of seconds – then its torn hole of a mouth opened wide and it declared, "Gryffindor!"

Lily and the rest of the Gryffindor table clapped and cheered for their newest member. Slughorn lifted the Hat off the boy's head and he trotted down to sit at their table. Slughorn called out the next name and the process repeated, the Sorting Hat reading a student's head and sending them to one of the four houses.

Lily felt a light warmth and buzzing in her robe pocket. She pulled out her multi-mirror, holding it under the table; it was rectangular with a silver frame, a little bigger than her palm. On the right side of the frame were four button-sized mirrors – the lowest tiny mirror was currently glowing blue, which meant the person who just wrote to her was her boyfriend.

She pressed on the glowing button and a message appeared on the mirror in thick black strokes: _'Sad song wasn't it?'_

Lily dragged a thumb up from the bottom of the mirror and the message scrolled away through the top frame. She wrote her reply on the new space, thick, ink-like lines tracing the path of her finger. _'Ya. Didn't like it'_

The mirror automatically scrolled down further with a reply writing itself on the glass pane. _'Me neither. Hat called Hufflepuffs stupid'_

Rose would not approve of Lily using her mirror during the Sorting ceremony, and she could lose Gryffindor House points if caught by a prefect or teacher – aaaaand Slughorn already spotted her. While the Hat was ruminating over another student, Slughorn wagged a finger at her, but with a playful glint in his eye. Lily paid Slughorn a sheepish smile and stowed the mirror back in her robes.

"Oooh, was that Torrian?" whispered Jessamine, leaning forward with a grin. Strands of her curled black hair brushed the table.

"Um, yeah," Lily checked that Slughorn was no longer watching her before answering.

"How are things?" Jessamine eyed her curiously.

"Err, fine," Lily's voice was a little high-pitched. "Just fine,"

Delfina, her head topped with a ponytail of brown hair, ducked low to avoid detection. "Did you talk a lot over the summer?" she asked.

"Yeah. Every day," At least twice a day, actually. And the conversation wouldn't stop until Lily told Torrian she had to do something.

"What about dates? Did you have plenty of dates?"

"Yes. About twice a week," They dated around Hogsmeade and the city of Caelorum. The first few times were fun, exciting – after a while it became a routine.

Slughorn was giving her a more serious look this time, so Lily cut their interrogation short with a throat-cut gesture. "Sluggy's watching,"

They watched and clapped to the rest of the Sorting. Once the final first-year clambered to her seat, Professor McGonagall stood up from the High Table to give her Start-of-Term address. Standing straight-backed and stern, her stately voice carried across the Hall magnified by magic.

"This year's speech will be short, but nonetheless important. As you know, it has been a year since our existence has been revealed to Muggle kind beyond any possibility of reversal, and a year since war has sprung between us all over the world. Currently, the war in this country is at an equilibrium; there are skirmishes, raids and bombardments, but engagements between main forces have been few and far between, so both sides maintain the bulk of their strength. Assuming that this pattern continues, this conflict can stretch for many years,"

The entire school listened with full attention, something Lily had only seen one other time, during McGonagall's speech last year when the war was a month old.

"Thus, it will not do for my students to fray their minds worrying over the course of the war. It is the job of adults to worry about the present. It is the job of students to pursue what they have always pursued at Hogwarts: the future. For it is your future that we are fighting for. Every thought and moment you lose worrying about battles far away is a loss of this war. The only way we can truly lose is by defeating ourselves, when every student has stopped learning. So carry on with your lives, so that you may be ready to lead on the day we adults hand you the reins. Now, let us eat,"

Every table in the Hall suddenly filled with plates of food. Roast beef and chicken, pork and lamb chops, pies, casserole, bread, sausages, potatoes and more – all still steaming warm. With a clattering of utensils everyone dug into the feast. Lily went straight for the pyramid of little Scotch pies.

"Will the war really last for years?" wondered Delfina aloud. "That's going to be really rough for the Muggle-borns. They might never get back to school,"

The House tables used to be more crowded, such that groups frequently overheard each other's conversations. But now there was more space between each group – at least an arm's length, practically a canyon to Lily. That was because Muggle-born students could no longer return to Hogwarts since last year.

When the war started, their Muggle parents had a choice: either move to a wizard village so their children could continue at Hogwarts, or stay in their homes in Muggle territory. There was no other way around it; it would be too risky for the school to send someone into Muggle territory to deliver a Portkey to Hogwarts. And Muggles who moved to a wizard village would have to live without electricity _or_ magic. Magical objects still needed to be bought, and occasionally maintenanced and recharged with mana; few wizards were willing to help Muggles there, and those who did charged extreme prices. Professor McGonagall tried to set up affordable accommodations for the parents of Muggle-borns, but she was shut down by the school's Board of Governors as it was 'an inappropriate use of school funds'.

"I wonder how Celyn is doing," said Delfina. "Either of you been in touch with her?"

"No. And how were we supposed to do that?" Jessamine said, a little irritably. "No owls in Muggle territory. No owls anywhere now," She stabbed into her chicken wing.

Celyn was smart; she probably surrendered her wand to the Muggle police and agreed to wear a cold iron bracelet. The cold iron, connected to some Muggle electronics, would alert the police if she somehow acquired another wand, a magical artefact, or attempted to use wandless magic. If she hadn't reported herself and been discovered by patrolling officers or Defenders, her entire family and her would have been sent to the wizard internment camp. Lily once overheard her father saying it was a better move to surrender and still live in your own home than think you could hide from the police's cold iron detectors. James did not like what he said.

"Yeah. But why now though? We've been using owls for so long, what's changed?"

Lily did not like this conversation, because any moment now they were going to talk about her father and how he hadn't won the war yet. A silvery-grey ghost floated down the aisle beside the Gryffindor table, nearing their group. He was Hogwarts' Gryffindor ghost, Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington: a translucent man with a short mane of curly hair and an Elizabethan doublet, breeches, and plate-like ruff around his neck.

"Hello, Nick," Lily waved to him – anything to take the conversation away from its current path. "How are you?"

"Why I'm fine, my dear Lily," Nearly-Headless Nick greeted in a noble bow – and his head hanging sideways off his neck, where it had been severed to a finger-width of connecting sinew remaining. He straightened up and the head plopped back in place. "And a happy birthday to you,"

"Thanks," Lily's spirit lifted a little at Nick's affable presence. "You're looking happy today, Nick,"

"Oho," Nick chortled and stroked his small goatee. "How kind of you to notice – I was floating by the Squib table, when one of them, who was stuffing his face full, started choking like he'd never seen a ghost before," Then he sighed wistfully and adjusted his curled moustache. "It's been so long since I scared anyone. It brings back such fond memories,"

Lily looked over at the Squib table, but she could hardly even see it as she was seated near the front of the Gryffindor table. Lily was about to ask Nick about his fond memories, when her multi-mirror buzzed again.

' _Can you come to the Entrance Hall? I want to give you your present'_ was Torrian's message.

Jessamine caught Lily checking her mirror again. "Well, what did he say?" she asked keenly.

"Um," said Lily. "I'm going outside for a bit," Lily stood up and made her way down the Hall. Some other students were also moving about, either heading to the toilets or meeting friends seated in different spots.

"Don't take too long," called Jessamine behind her.

As Lily travelled down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff table, she scanned for Torrian but couldn't find him – he must already be waiting outside. She exited the chattering Great Hall into the quiet Entrance Hall and there Torrian was, waiting beside the marble staircase.

Torrian was tall and very muscular; even through Hogwarts' baggy robes, Lily could trace out the bulk and definition of his arms, chest and shoulders. He was also very handsome; his face having both strong, chiselled lines and a boyish softness. He had light brown hair, short and wavy, and bright amber eyes. He spotted her approaching and closed the distance eagerly.

"Happy birthday, Lily," Torrian's gentle voice and broad shoulders could make anyone feel safe and protected.

"Thanks," Lily felt a little embarrassed with the way he was staring so intensely at her. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching them.

Torrian took something out of his sleeve and presented it to her. "I got this for you,"

The moment Lily saw it, her brain spiralled into silent panic. It was a tiny square box of black velvet. W-Wasn't this a little too fast?! They'd only been dating since May!

Torrian opened the box – the golden ring inside nearly gave her a heart attack. It was a simple, unadorned band, but so blinding in its goldenness. "I-Is it gold-plated?"

Torrian shook his head. "No. It's pure goblin-wrought gold,"

That was harder, stronger, and more expensive than regular pure gold! And the price must have skyrocketed even higher since the goblins sided with the Muggles. "H-How much was this?"

"Not much, compared to some other rings. I just thought it was fitting for now, nothing too dazzling…I'll get something nicer if we…we were to get married," he said with a shy smile.

Lily was starting to feel faint. Seeing her stunned expression, Torrian asked hopefully. "Do you like it?"

It was hard to form a proper opinion in her whirlpool of emotions. "It's…It's beautiful, but…it's too much. Please return it. You can't spend this much money on me!"

Torrian looked crestfallen. "The money doesn't matter. I inherited plenty of money from my parents. I just wanted you to know how much I love you," He raised his free left hand and there was another ring on his ring finger, a simple band made of polished near-black metal.

"I had our rings enchanted. Anything you do to one ring will happen to the other," He turned the ring on his finger and the golden ring in the box started turning as well. "With this, we can send messages to each other,"

Didn't they already have multi-mirrors for that?

"Also, if one of us wearing the ring is badly hurt, the other ring will pull you in its direction,"

Lily had heard of this enchantment. It was powerful and so required a lot of mana to maintain, and ultimately not very useful for most people. On the occasion that your partner was hurt, you could tell his or her general direction, but they could be anywhere in that direction. And usually when someone was injured, they didn't need their partner, they needed the police or a Healer. And they could easily be summoned with one's wand or by calling out their emergency distress call.

"Lily…" Torrian took one of her limp hands and placed the ring box on it. "Any day now, Hogwarts could be infiltrated by Muggles. I just want you to be safe. I don't feel safe myself unless I know that you're safe. Please take it,"

"Ah…Um…" Lily really didn't deserve it, but felt like rejecting the ring any further would crush Torrian. She just couldn't _possibly_ wear it on her finger where everyone could see – she'd never hear the end of how lucky she was from Jessamine. She searched desperately for a solution. What if she used a Disillusionment Charm on it? But then what would Torrian think? There had to be something –

"Wait," She looked at Torrian's ring. "Can I have your ring instead? I-I kind of like it better,"

"This?" Torrian looked confused. "But this is just tungsten carbide,"

"W-Well, it umm, it reminds me of you," It was kind of true. Lily closed the ring box and handed it back to Torrian.

"Ah, I see," Torrian removed his ring and gave it to Lily. It was a little bigger than her size, but that could be fixed by dunking it in a Shrinking Solution.

They stood silently for several seconds, with Lily not knowing what else to say and Torrian just gazing at her in satisfaction. "Err, we should get back to the feast,"

"I suppose," said Torrian. "I came up with some messages we could use with our rings, but we'll discuss it tomorrow,"

"Okay. Umm, thank you, Torrian," Lily approached him, tip-toed, and kissed him on the cheek. His smile couldn't be happier. It made Lily feel glad, but not excited like she used to feel. "Bye," She took a few steps back and retreated into the Great Hall. She wore Torrian's ring immediately because she knew he would be testing it soon. As she returned to her seat and braced for her friends' reaction, she wondered what was wrong with her for feeling so empty with such a loving boyfriend.


	5. Chapter 5 - A Day at Hogwarts

Chapter 5 – A Day at Hogwarts

Ethan found it a little difficult to understand Varun's complaint that the Squib Quarters were not as great as the common rooms of the four Houses. It was by far the most comfortable place Ethan had ever set foot in. The Squib's common room was an enormous lounge with light grey panelled walls, candled chandeliers, and ornate Baroque furniture. There were a couple nice rugs, a roaring huge fireplace one could stand in, soft armchairs and couches, and a great view of Hogwarts Lake through the windows.

A pair of stairs in the common room led off to the boys' and girls' dormitories. The dorm room Ethan shared with Timothy and Varun was similarly furnished, with four poster beds, an ancient heat stove in the middle, and a water jug by the window sill. Ethan's trunk was already at the foot of his own bed; he pulled out a set of light clothing and went off to shower before Timothy and Varun could ask him more questions. The showers connected to their dorm room were walled with stone but otherwise modern like Potter's bathroom; thankfully, wizardkind had not considered it beneath them to adopt showerheads, water taps, and flush toilets.

Ethan's new bed was just as ridiculously soft as Albus's bed was, and swallowed him into sleep in an instant. The next thing he knew, the sun was shining outside and it was the first day of lessons.

Ethan followed Timothy and Varun on their way to breakfast, out of the west side of the third floor (fourth floor for Americans) and onto the ridiculous place known as the Grand Staircase. The enormous stairwell was a completely senseless maze of criss-crossing stairs that would likely fill an architect with rage. Flights of stairs had a tendency to float to a different landing while a student was on them, and some doors led to completely different places on a different day or hour. There were even a few trick steps where a student's foot – like Ethan's – would sink through and require another student – like Varun – to pull them out. Also of note was that the walls of the stairwell were covered almost frame-to-frame with paintings, and every student that passed through would have about a hundred painted eyes watching them silently from above.

Timothy explained to Ethan last night that the Grand Staircase was intended to be a ground-breaking marvel designed by one of Hogwarts' founders, Rowena Ravenclaw. Theoretically, via Ravenclaw's revolutionary space-warping magic, one would be able to reach any room in the castle from the stairwell by focusing on their destination and taking the path that would twist or fall into place before them. However, Ravenclaw never finished her work, and no wizard to this day has been able to undo it. And so Hogwarts was left with a navigational nightmare complemented with glitches that occasionally threw students to the opposite end of the castle from where they intended to go.

They reached the ground floor and returned to the Great Hall for breakfast. Presently the ceiling showed a mostly clear blue sky, and it gave off enough light that there was no need for candles in the air. The tables were laid with an assortment of breakfast foods, and it looked about half the school was currently having breakfast. The three of them sat down and started on breakfast themselves.

"So what happens now?" asked Ethan, helping himself to a couple of pancakes. As he lifted them off their large plate, another smaller plate helpfully materialized in front of him.

"Well, we wait for our timetables, and then we go to class," answered Timothy, filling a plate with bacon, eggs and sausages.

"So Ethan, how come you're only here now, instead of January with the rest of us?" Varun asked while pouring a jug of milk over his muesli.

Ethan tried to deflect the question. "You guys came here in January?"

"Yes," said Timothy. "Our school was captured by the Muggles last December during the holidays. Most of the teachers lived nearby and got captured, too. I was worried I wouldn't get to finish my studies, but Headmistress McGonagall just let us transfer in after the holidays,"

"But the material here isn't different?" Ethan asked.

"It's mostly the same, actually. Squib School offered OWLs and NEWTs for all theory subjects like Astronomy and History of Magic. For magical subjects, we don't have practical exams since we can't use magic, so we can only get half-OWLs and half-NEWTs for those. We also had vocational courses, but they're not available here,"

Ethan was a little confused to hear of schools offering owls and newts and then chopping them in half for certain subjects.

"What was American Squib School like?" Varun asked earnestly.

"Yeah, what subjects do you take over there?" added Timothy.

Ethan couldn't dodge this one forever, and any lies he could come up with would be unsustainable. It was treading on thin ice, but he had to go with the truth. "I didn't go to Squib School. I went to a Muggle School,"

Their faces widened with even more interest. "Really?" gasped Timothy.

"I see. So you came over here when things started looking bad for the Congress," muttered Varun. "And you couldn't find another Muggle school?"

"Right," said Ethan. "It wasn't possible anymore due to the war. So after wasting some time, I came here," Hopefully now he had answered the mystery of his appearance to Varun's satisfaction.

"What do you learn at Muggle school?" Timothy asked with great wonder. "How to use electricity? How to use guns?" He uttered the last word with some dread.

"Err, no," Ethan was about to elaborate, when a tawny owl swooped down in front of Timothy. It seemed to have come from an open window near the ceiling.

Timothy reached out and pulled a large roll of newspaper from a pouch on the owl's back. He then deposited a bronze coin in the pouch and the owl promptly took off and out another window. In last night's start-of-term notices, the Headmistress announced that though students could no longer use their owls to deliver letters and packages outside Hogwarts, those subscribed to the Daily Prophet and other publications would still receive them by their own owl or one of the school-owned owls. The publications were delivered to Hogwarts every day by 'alternative means'; any student wishing to use those means to make an urgent delivery could approach their Head of House for permission.

Timothy set his newspaper down and returned to his breakfast. "Can I read that?" Ethan pointed to it – he was already done with his pancakes.

Timothy consented and Ethan read through the articles. The Ministry held a press conference yesterday announcing a number of new measures and rules for wizard villages in order to improve security. An opposition leader by the name of Augustus Talbot made a statement that the Ministry was 'caving in' and that wizardkind must 'rally together' to 'repel the Muggles' with a 'firm demonstration of strength'. In other news, two wizard families hiding in a Chinese village were discovered and imprisoned, and the Russian military had retaken the smothering ruins of Voronezh for the hundredth time. There was a break-out of fifteen wizards from the U.S.'s wizard internment camp, and twenty-two humans were killed by wizards romping over Rio de Janeiro. A free-for-all of countless factions continues in Middle East hotspots like Iraq and Syria, but the Daily Prophet wasn't reporting everyday occurrences. Overall, an average day.

Four teachers descended from the High Table and each started going down one of the House tables; they carried a large stack of timetable sheets, and stopping at each student, tapped a sheet with their wand and handed it out. The one to distribute the Squibs' timetables was Headmistress McGonagall herself. Soon, her daunting presence was upon the three of them.

"Varun Sandhu," McGonagall confirmed as she handed him his timetable. Varun gave a curt nod.

"Timothy Bennett," Timothy thanked McGonagall graciously upon receiving his sheet. McGonagall then turned to Ethan.

"You must be Ethan Chen. Welcome to Hogwarts,"

McGonagall gave him a composed knowing look through her thin rectangular spectacles. Ethan returned the look in kind to the woman who was his current captor. She had a lean, severe visage cut with many lines of age, but her green eyes still gazed sharp and alert. She wore her grey hair in a taut and neat bun, and was today dressed in fitted emerald robes.

"You have not yet chosen the elective subjects you wish to study here. All students in their fifth year must take a minimum of two elective subjects from a selection of five, in addition to our seven core subjects,"

Nine subjects minimum sounded like a lot. He didn't have to pay attention to the classes, but did he really have to attend classes here in order to stay hidden?

"Our five electives are Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Muggle Studies, and Study of Ancient Runes,"

Ethan had no idea what any of those names entailed, but the first subject to stick out to him was Divination. "Divination…you mean reading the future?"

Timothy rounded on him immediately. "Ethan, you shouldn't take Divination,"

"Why is that?"

"Because we can't use magic?" Varun looked at Ethan questioningly. "If you don't have any magic, you can't predict anything. Even most wizards can't predict anything accurately at all,"

Well, that was a shame to hear. For a moment Ethan thought that wizards were reliably capable of predicting the future, but he supposed they would be doing a lot better at the war if the information they acquired was accurate or useful.

"Well, what are you two taking?"

Timothy answered. "We're both taking Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies. They're both theory subjects, so we'll get full OWLs and NEWTs from them,"

Ethan had never seen any magical creatures, but he had heard of them in the four months of the war before he was captured. Most of them were terrible stories of dragons and basilisks; Ethan couldn't help but feel an eagerness to learn more. As for Muggle Studies…that was going to be interesting to witness.

"I'll take those," Ethan told McGonagall.

"Very well," She tapped her wand on a blank timetable and handed it to him. It had been filled in:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Monday~~~~~Tuesday~~~~~Wednesday~~~~~Thursday~~~~~Friday

7:30 – 9:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Breakfast~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9:00 – 10:00 ~~~~~~M.S~~~~~~~~H.O.M~~~~~~Potions~~~~~~~Transfig~~~~~~Herbology

10:00 – 11:00 ~~~~~Charms~~~~~~C.O.C~~~~~~Astronomy~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~D.A.D.A

11:00 – 12:00 ~~~~~Charms~~~~~~C.O.C~~~~~~Astronomy~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~D.A.D.A

12:00 – 1:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Lunch~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1:00 – 2:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~D.A.D.A~~~~~~~Charms~~~~~~C.O.C

2:00 – 3:00 ~~~~~~Transfig~~~~~~Herbology~~~~M.S~~~~~~~~~H.O.M~~~~~~~Potions

3:00 – 4:00 ~~~~~~Transfig~~~~~~Herbology~~~~M.S~~~~~~~~~H.O.M~~~~~~~Potions

4:00 – 5:30 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Clubs~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5:30 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dinner~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

6:00 – 8/9:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Detention~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Curfew for 1st to 4th years~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Curfew for 5th to 7th years~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

0:00 – 1:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Astronomy

When Ethan touched an occupied slot, it would change to display the name of the classroom for the next class. Timothy looked over at his sheet. "That's the same as ours. Our Astronomy night class is on Fridays this year – brilliant, now I can sleep in,"

Ethan noted a distinct lack of anything resembling English, mathematics, physics, or humanities. Granted, he didn't know what half of the acronyms stood for, so he could not say for sure. He looked at his wristwatch – he had found it inside his trunk, and the scratches and wornness around its brass case and leather straps indicated that it likely belonged to Albus. It was currently half past eight; now that they were done with breakfast, they should return to their dormitory to grab their needed books and wait for their first class.

As the three of them returned to the Entrance Hall and ascended the Grand Staircase, a pair of older Slytherins, in their green-lined robes, were descending – they closed in at the middle of the stairs.

" _Levicorpus,"_

An invisible force grabbed Ethan by the ankles and hoisted him about seven feet above the stairs. Timothy's and Varun's upside-down faces hung on either side of him.

"Don't block the way, Squibs," said one of the Slytherins cheerily as they passed under them. "Don't you have any manners?"

Ethan was facing the top of the stairs and couldn't move his feet, but he could twist his head and body to see the Slytherins enter the Great Hall with a laugh.

Varun swore and Timothy groaned tiredly. Ethan tried to curl up towards his feet but he wasn't exactly in the best of shape. Moments later, a group of Ravenclaws in blue-lined robes popped out from the Great Hall.

"Hello! Could you please help us?" cried Timothy.

The Ravenclaws looked up, then gave them a wide berth as they ascended the stairs. Varun swore again when they were out of earshot. "Fucking wizards,"

Several more groups walked around them like they were grotesque mistletoes. Even fellow Squibs ignored them, passing by with their heads hung low. Their robes flapped over (or under) their heads like flags on a string. They hung for possibly five minutes; Ethan periodically pulled himself to a half-crunch to keep his head from exploding. He could feel the invisible grip on his ankles weakening.

"We're about to drop," Varun warned. They all shielded their craniums with their arms. Ethan dropped and his forearms met the edge of the stairs with a sharp crack; he tumbled down the staircase and onto the grey stony floor. Ethan wobbled upright and inspected his arms – they were bruised, scraped and definitely fractured. Ethan started back for the Great Hall.

"Ethan! Where are you going?" Timothy called from behind, him and Varun and similarly injured.

"I'm going to report what happened to Professor McGonagall,"

Timothy hobbled over beside him. "Woah, you can't do that! It'll just make things worse!"

Ethan was sensing a severe case of learned helplessness. "Worse? We almost broke our necks on a staircase,"

"It's just broken bones, if it's serious we can go to the hospital wing," Timothy gingerly pulled a tall flask of green liquid from his sleeve. "Healing Potion. Just take a sip,"

Ethan uncorked the bottle and took a sip of the Healing Potion; slowly he felt his wounds closing, but the stabbing pain wasn't going away any time soon. He tried to return the bottle to Timothy.

"Keep it; you'll need it. And you can always ask for more at the hospital wing," Timothy pulled another flask and drank from that.

Wizards may have different standards of what constitutes danger, but Ethan was still not going to let what happened slide. He turned back towards the Great Hall, only this time to be held back by Varun.

"There's no point. We tried it before. They'll get detention, and then they and their buddies will be back, and they'll hit us in sneakier ways where we can't prove it's them,"

Ethan had not experienced anger in a while. He really wanted to shake Varun's hand off of him and barge into the Hall. " _Can't prove?_ Since when did school bullying need a high standard of proof?"

Varun and Timothy weren't familiar with the term 'standard of proof', but they got his meaning. "McGonagall can't help us," said Varun. "None of the teachers can. McGonagall's already under fire for taking us Squibs into Hogwarts. She's a couple of signatures away from being suspended as Headmistress. She can't go punishing students over minor things, especially not anyone connected to the Board of Governors,"

So wizard school was still a school after all. Ethan was starting to think fondly of his cell in the Ministry. They went back to the Squib Quarters and idled some time away, waiting for their arms to heal. Ethan packed the day's textbooks and other supplies into a leather satchel bag that also belonged to Albus.

As the clock neared nine, they left the castle through one of many eastern exits and made their way towards Hogwarts' greenhouses. Along the way, Ethan spotted a large, knobbly tree in the distance, with a group of students gathered before it. One student would approach the tree, and then the tree would come to life and swing its enormous club-like branches at the encroacher. Some students made a run towards it, others favoured a more cautious approach – one after another Ethan witnessed the tree bat them away like golf balls at least a yard across the grounds.

"What are they doing?" Ethan asked incredulously.

"They're playing 'Touch the Willow'," replied Timothy.

"But...why?"

"I guess because they have a break period right now,"

Each greenhouse was an enormous building with several rooms. Through the glass walls Ethan could see all manner of outlandish plants, from thin vines that wiggled about a dark room to gigantic purple bulbs that bounced all over a locked one. They entered a room with three long tables, one seated with Gryffindors and another with Hufflepuffs. Ethan instantly recognized Lily Potter's bright red hair from among the Gryffindors, and the tall curly-haired boy among the Hufflepuffs. Once the class was filled, Ethan counted fourteen Gryffindors and fourteen Hufflepuffs; together with Ethan, Timothy and Varun as the only three Squibs of their year, it made for a reasonably average class size.

Their Herbology teacher was one Professor Neville Longbottom, turning around from a blackboard at the front of the class.

"Morning, everyone," He was a tall, broad-shouldered individual with a shock of dark brown hair and smooth stubble. Yet he held himself with a slight slouch and continually wore a sheepish expression, like he was not entirely comfortable in his own body. "Welcome back," He momentarily paused, coming up with more pleasant things to say. "I hope everyone had a good summer holiday,"

The class nodded quietly in affirmation.

"Good," He scanned down the Squib table and landed his gaze on Ethan. "Ah – um, class, we have a new student joining us this year. How about you introduce yourself to the class?"

Ethan was still a little incensed from earlier events, but quashed such emotions readily where they were not helpful. He stood up and swept a calm gaze over the class.

"My name is Ethan Chen,"

Lily was actually looking at him now, cognizant of his presence. It was peculiar to imagine that for her, this would be their first meeting.

"You're American, right?" asked Longbottom.

"Yes. I apologize in advance for any misunderstandings or perceived rudeness," Only the Squibs gave appreciative grins. No wizard student wanted to show too much positivity towards a Squib.

"Oh, there's no need for that. Heather is from the U.S. as well," Longbottom gestured towards someone on the Hufflepuff table that Ethan couldn't see from his position. "Where are you from?"

"Originally, Chinatown, Manhattan,"

"New York City?" Longbottom nodded with intrigue. "Not many wizards live in the city. You come from a very tech-savvy family then?"

"I suppose. We know our way around a light bulb, at least,"

Longbottom smiled appreciatively. "Still don't know how those things work. What are your interests?"

He definitely couldn't say hacking into the U.S. government and private businesses, betraying his country for fun and profit. "I don't have any interests. I'm a terribly boring person,"

"So far, I wouldn't say that at all. What's your favourite subject?"

"Whichever gives out the least homework," Lily was the only wizard who didn't do something to hide her smile.

"I'm sad to hear that, Ethan. I usually give out a err, an average amount of homework, but I'll see what I can do for this class at least. You can sit down now,"

That was not a bad effort on the part of the professor. However, Ethan himself was not made of charming, so there was only so much Longbottom could do. They started on their first topic, which was the breeding of magical properties into ordinary plants, and studied some examples of Fanged Geraniums and Honking Daffodils. Lily asked if the Whomping Willow in the school grounds counted as a magical variety of willow; the professor informed that the Whomping Willow was a completely different species and bore only a superficial resemblance to an actual willow. Longbottom concluded their lesson by informing them that eventually they will form groups for a project to breed their own magical cultivar of a flower.

From the greenhouses, they took a closer route up the school hill back to the castle. As they climbed along the cliff side, Ethan beheld a wide, open view of the Great Lake that lapped gently at the bottom of the cliff. Far away, Ethan spotted a row of students along the shore that appeared to be tossing something into the lake. Suddenly, a giant tentacle rose out of the water and swept the shore, flattening the row of students. The tentacle grabbed the leg of one student, swung him in several circles through the air, and then pulled him into the water.

"What was that?!" asked Ethan, pointing at the rippling lake.

"Oh that's the Giant Squid," said Timothy. "Don't worry – it only does that if you make fun of it, or spike the food with something,"

 _Is this what students do for fun in this school?_ thought Ethan. Taunt giant things into attacking them?

Back in the castle, their next lesson was Defence Against the Dark Arts, conducted in a regular-looking classroom. This class the Squibs took with the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. Their teacher was a Black British by the name of Professor Dean Thomas. Like Longbottom, he was good-natured and approachable, but more laid-back and informal in contrast to Longbottom's nervousness. Thomas mainly went over the basic tenets of wizarding combat, and promised that they would get to practicing in the next double period. The Squibs would watch and take notes.

"What job exactly can a Squib get with a half-NEWT in D.A.D.A?" asked Ethan once lesson was over.

"No idea," answered Varun. "I just take it so I know what Dark creature is trying to kill me,"

After lunch, they left out the front doors and across the school grounds to a wooden cabin sitting on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Their teacher, Professor Rubeus Hagrid, was a literal half-giant: eleven and a half feet tall, with thrice the girth of a normal man, a long riotous mane of dark hair and scraggly beard. Wearing a scruffy moleskin overcoat the size of a tent, he led the students into the apparently not-that-Forbidden Forest – if the school _really_ wanted to keep students out, a magical barrier would have done the trick, but once again, the school took a cavalier attitude towards student safety.

In a small clearing, Hagrid introduced them to a pen of irascible Questing Beasts: it had the head and long neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, the hindquarters of a lion with a longer tufted tail, and the feet of a deer. As the Questings tore away at a great heap of flesh, Hagrid lectured them on the general traits of chimeric beasts and how new species may occur naturally or come to be through wizard breeding. He quickly flew off on a tangent, though, and started talking about how he caught the Questings just outside the Forest safe zone, pawing against the anti-creature barrier. He told the class that if they were ever attacked by Questings, their best hope was to jinx themselves full of purple boils and pus to look diseased and unappetizing, as there was no way they were going to defeat or outrun a pack of them.

He asked if anyone wanted to pet them – only two Ravenclaw boys were brave enough to step forward.

"Go on, Scamanders," Hagrid said heartily, handing each a slab of unknown meat that he pulled from one of many pockets on his coat.

The Scamander boys were twins with short blond hair, and they looked about a year younger than the rest of the class. A pair of Questings trotted up to the twins and snatched the steaks from their hands with a lightning-fast strike. The beasts emitted a raspy, bark-like sound as the twins stroked their heads.

"Lorcan, you hear that barking in this one's belly? I think it's about six months pregnant," said one twin, with left-swept hair.

"Yes; the babies should rip out of their mother's belly in another month," Lorcan, with right-swept hair, stated matter-of-factly. "We got to see the birthing, Lysander. And record it,"

"Professor Hagrid, will you be keeping the Questings that long?" asked Lysander.

"Well o'course – I'm thinkin' er raising the babies meself,"

"Excellent," the twins said at the same time.

Next lesson was Potions. Potions class was held in the school's dim, cold and stony dungeons, an environment Ethan found very familiar. Entering a Potions classroom, Ethan sat at a long table fitted with sinks and a small pewter cauldron in front of every stool.

The Potions master was Professor Horace Slughorn, the pot-bellied wizard who conducted the Sorting ceremony. Upon closer inspection, Ethan realized that the man was ancient, older than McGonagall: his balding hair was wispy white, and his face held many droopy lines of pouchy flesh.

"How old is he?" Ethan asked Timothy.

"Umm, a hundred and twenty I think?"

Ethan knew that wizards had a longer life expectancy than humans and healthy adult wizards tended to appear up to ten years younger than their human counterparts. "A hundred and twenty? Is that normal?" He asked, seeking more information.

"I don't think so. Most wizard live to about a hundred. I think he must take a lot of health potions every day or something,"

Despite his advanced senescence, Slughorn was a most lively, affable personality. This was only a first day assessment, but Slughorn seemed the most adept of all teachers at tricking students into enjoying class. He organized a short competition for the class to make a Laughing Potion: whoever could make their partner keel over the hardest would receive fifty House points.

House points were an entirely sinister device designed only to inflict unnecessary stress, rivalry, and social pressure upon the student body. Prefects could deduct points from students if they broke a rule and teachers could do so for rule-breaking or failure to hand in homework. Teachers awarded points for answering questions, high grades, and generally being a kiss-up. All this point-gathering amounted to was an empty trophy cup and congratulations for the winning House at the end of the year. Thankfully, Squibs didn't have a House, so they could not gain or lose points.

Ethan wanted to try his hand at a Laughing Potion anyway, but Timothy stopped him to say that Squibs couldn't make potions – all potions required at least one spell at some point. So he spent that lesson listening to others have barrels of laughter while he read his Potions textbook.

Wizards had some basic understanding of physics and chemistry; there were some diagrams for distillation, pH testing and chromatography. Yet if Ethan's fifth-year book was any indication, they were still woefully juvenile in their knowledge of atomic and molecular theory. Their atomic model was a hard sphere 'charged with electricity'. Their periodic table had half as many elements, missing most of the lesser known and heavier ones. They also lumped all types of chemical bonding together, had a blatantly wrong understanding of ions, and knew not the concept of isotopes – they were under the impression that some atoms were just fatter than others.

After Potions, Ethan had an inordinate amount of time to kill before Astronomy. The homework set by each teacher was easy enough to complete with textbooks available for reference; the hardest part was writing with quill and ink bottle. Finishing his homework within an hour and leaving it with Varun for reference, Ethan found scant to do with his newfound freedom. He took to reading his D.A.D.A textbook; there was little he could do with knowledge of spells and wand flourishes, but a new field of knowledge was always fascinating. He could read all his textbooks from cover to cover and only grow more engrossed the more he discovered.

As midnight approached, Ethan headed for the Astronomy Tower, the tallest tower in Hogwarts and the most exhausting to reach. After winding through multiple stairwells, Ethan reached a roof surrounded by parapet and featuring usual classroom furniture. There were spare telescopes as well, some sextants, orreries and other astronomical tools.

Astronomy was the strangest lesson of the day for two reasons. The first was their teacher who entered the classroom six minutes late.

"Aendallin nualaë, my students," spoke a man in fitted purple robes trimmed with silver and gold, wrapped over his lithe figure. His skin was a medium ashen grey, his hair long and pure white, and his eyes a mesmerizing violet. His ears were pointed like a leaf with small silver hoop earrings. He was ridiculously handsome and looked far too young to be a professor of anything; he looked more like a fresh graduate from one of New York's art schools.

Professor Edwenehelon of Felenthir walked to the front of the class like a cloud drifting through the air – as in, very slowly. "It is good to see you again. In this year, we shall explore the wonders of the cosmos together, deeper than we have before," His voice was silky like milk chocolate and had the uncanny ability to ensnare the attention of female students. Wherever he drifted, young witches melted like polar ice caps in summer.

The veela race were currently still neutral in the war despite many overtures from both wizards and humans. They mostly stayed in their hidden kingdoms and never associated much with either goblins or wizards. So this professor had to be an oddball to be teaching Astronomy in a wizard school.

The second strange thing about Astronomy was that it had absolutely nothing to do with magic: they studied astrometry, celestial mechanics, planetary geology – Astronomy seemed to be the class where wizards acquired most of their mathematical skills, which wasn't saying much about those skills.

As Ethan skimmed through his book he realized something: using an astronomical almanac and a sextant, couldn't he calculate his geographic coordinates? He quickly read up on the method, took the required tools, measured and calculated while Professor Felenthir went on about Saturn's moons. Soon he had it, fairly accurate geographic coordinates for Hogwarts: as he suspected, they were in the Scottish Highlands, nestled within the Grampian mountain range.

But when he attempted to write the full set of coordinate values on his sheet of parchment, suddenly his muscles seized – his entire body froze. His veins were on fire, his tendons were about to snap, his brain felt like it was pumping in boiling water. The Occlumency Charm on his ankle burned like a stove pan. He tried to push against the pain and the Charm burned hotter as he did – his quill quivered an inch forward, but his vision was beginning to blur.

The pain only stopped when he released thought of writing Hogwarts' location. He couldn't even write individual numbers of it or derivatives in code; the mere intention of an act that sent a message would lock his body. He thought of sending his rough calculations to the allied military instead, and his body locked again.

Lesson ended and everyone departed save for Ethan; he told Felenthir that he wanted to look at the stars longer, and he was only happy to oblige, but reminded that he had only fifteen minutes grace to return to his common room. Ethan only needed a while to rest, since his muscles were still in shock and not ready for movement.

A shadow appeared out of thin air from behind Ethan, in the shape of a woman with a tight hair bun.

"You should not have pushed so hard against the binding of the Fidelius Charm, Mr. Chen," Professor McGonagall stepped before Ethan. "Like all magic, it is not unbreakable, but a single Occlumency Charm will not be enough to overcome an enchantment supplied by this castle's power,"

"You knew I would try this," Ethan managed out of his shaking lungs.

"I suspected you might once you had access to Astronomy equipment," said McGonagall, cool as the night air. "Though you needn't have gone through the trouble; Hogwarts' location is not a secret to its students. There are many maps in the school library that illustrate its exact whereabouts. However, even should you manage to put that information in an envelope, no owl will accept it. Students are no longer allowed to communicate outside Hogwarts via owl post. All owls nesting at Hogwarts have been informed of this rule, and so will any new owls that enter the Owlery. Owls are now barred from passing the barrier over both Hogwarts and Hogsmeade unless approved by either myself or Hogsmeade's mayor respectively,"

"I'm aware of that. I was only preparing a letter in case the situation changed,"

A silence hung over the Astronomy classroom. Out in the middle of Scottish nowhere, Ethan could see more stars now in one view than he did in all his days in New York put together. It took him a moment to realize that the glowing cloudy band across the sky was the Milky Way. The sight of it all was certainly beautiful, but he was never a stargazer – he wasn't a fan of contemplating the smallness of his existence, or the infinite mysteries of the universe he'll never reach.

"I have no words to express my sympathy for what you endured at the Ministry," said McGonagall.

"Whatever. You can express your sympathy by getting me out of here,"

"Mr. Potter is finding the means to do so with all the time he has to spare,"

"And how long is he going to take? How difficult can it be to drop me off at the nearest human town?"

"The Ministry possesses powerful magic that can detect the presences of all persons across Britain, and differentiate between wizards and Muggles. Right now, the only place a Muggle in wizard territory will raise no suspicion is here at Hogwarts, among our Squib students. When he freed you, Mr. Potter prevented the Ministry's detection of you with his Invisibility Cloak. However, entry into Muggle territory by any means – by broom, Apparition or even by foot, is monitored by the Ministry by a plethora of spells, which the Cloak cannot fully deflect. Only a smuggling Floo network presents a chance of allowing him to take you both to a Muggle city undetected,"

That was a lot of jargon and unknown concepts to take in. "A smuggling Floo network?"

"Yes. It is a rogue network of portals unknown to the Ministry and out of range of their detection magic. However, the underground portal nodes are owned by goblins, who are no longer allied with wizardkind. One smuggling ring may be willing to transport you, but it will take some time to find one,"

So Harry Potter could let him go tomorrow, or never. "I see. Fine," There was nothing more to say or discuss.

"If you have any need, you can find me directly at my office. I hope you enjoy your stay at Hogwarts," In a whirl of robes, McGonagall disappeared. Ethan stayed and stared at the sky as long as he could, wondering at the strangeness of his life.


	6. Chapter 6 - The Dragon

Chapter 6 – The Dragon

The next morning, Ethan read some interesting posters at the noticeboard in the Squib common room. One poster featured a student handing a wounded militia wizard a Healing Potion. Bold, gleaming letters pronounced: _'Hogwarts' Army –_ _Win this war. Every day after classes, all day on weekends. Classrooms D2E – D2J. Come in any time. Speak or owl to James Sirius Potter for enquiries.'_

Ethan found the animation loop rather amusing: a militiaman would enter the poster, get shot and fall over. Then a student would come by, hand him the potion and run off. The militiaman, his wound healed, stood up and charged onward, only for a similar man to enter the poster and get shot himself. The poster looped three unique militiamen. Somehow, Ethan thought it was hilarious that the poster designer realized the obvious irony of looping just one militiaman, and decided that three unique men was about as much effort as the poster was worth. Ethan was no propaganda expert, but perhaps a different graphic would have been better. He wondered who put this thing in the Squib Quarters anyway, and how much assistance Squibs could be to creating supplies for the militia.

Another poster displayed two students slinging beams of light at each other. _'Duelling Club Tournament – September 3_ _rd_ _, 1:30 pm – 5:30 pm, Great Hall._ Organizing a tournament so early in the new term was definitely a ploy to attract first-years to the club. He imagined a club where wizards learn to fight must be more popular now anyway.

Timothy dropped in from the dormitory. "Ethan, thinking of joining a club?"

Ethan shrugged. "I don't know. What clubs are there?" He was simply gathering information – joining a club was not a part of keeping a low profile.

"Oh, there's loads of clubs, but none of them will accept Squibs. Except one – the Chess Club. It's a very relaxed club, you don't have know how to play chess,"

Ethan thought that the least a self-respecting member of a chess club could do was know how to play chess.

"The clubroom's open all day on weekends, great place to hang out. You want to come by after breakfast?"

Ethan supposed he could follow Timothy to investigate this club that dared allow Squibs to join. Once Varun trudged down lazily from the dormitory, the three of them had their breakfast. Thankfully this time, they did not get in any wizard's way. The chess clubroom was on the second floor; on their way down a corridor, Ethan encountered a familiar tousle of brown hair.

"Morning, Hugo!" greeted Timothy, a little enthusiastically in Ethan's opinion.

Hugo turned as they approached him. "Hello, Timothy. Heading to the clubroom?"

"Yeah," They carried on down the corridor. "This is Ethan. He just transferred in. He's from a Muggle school,"

"Really?" Hugo raised a hand in hello. "I'm Hugo Weasley. You came from a Muggle school?" He asked curiously.

"Yes. It's not so different from here," Hogwarts possessed the same great things that made Ethan hate his old schools.

"Not so different?" cried Timothy. "Ethan says that they teach English and math all the way until they graduate err, high school. Isn't that loony? How do they stretch English and math for so long?"

Ethan learnt from Timothy at lunch yesterday that most children from wizard society learnt their basics at a day-care, then were home-schooled by their parents, sometimes forming little study groups in the neighbourhood.

"I went to a Muggle school, too," Hugo told Ethan. "Nursery school and primary school,"

Ethan had not expected that. "Really?"

"Yeah. My mother was Muggle-born, and she wanted my sister and me to learn from Muggles, too. And she _still_ home-schooled us when we came home," Hugo shook his head in painful recollection.

"I wish my parents had let me go to a Muggle school," commented Varun. "But they thought it would make me dumber. They just kept on hoping I would suddenly show signs of magic,"

Wizard children usually displayed signs of magical ability by the age of seven; floating in the air, blowing bubbles from their mouths, or making their toys fight each other to the death.

"Well, they just didn't want to give up on you," assured Timothy. "No one wants their child to go live with Muggles – they don't have magic, they have to clean everything by hand – I don't know how they manage,"

They were just outside the clubroom, but on the other end of the corridor loomed a trio of Hufflepuffs.

"Squibs and Weasleys," spat the guy in the middle, a stocky figure with sandy blond hair. Ethan recognized him from his Herbology and D.A.D.A. classes. "Traitors stick together, eh? You think that'll protect you?"

The three Hufflepuffs took positions surrounding them. Since Ethan, Timothy and Varun were worth nothing in a wizard fight, it was essentially three against one.

"What are you still doing here, Weasley? Shouldn't you be with your traitor parents, ratting us out to the Muggles?" Their spokesperson shoved Hugo in the chest. Hugo staggered back a step, but otherwise did nothing, save stare slightly downwards. "We should get rid of you before you rat us out, too,"

If these punks were humans in a human school, Ethan could threaten to destroy them with a keystroke. Their cell phones, e-mail, Facebook, family's credit card information…nothing of their miserable lives would be safe from his reach. But in here, against these people, he was powerless. Ethan braced himself to be hit with some jinx like those he read about in his D.A.D.A. textbook.

"Hey!" A Slytherin entered the corridor. Ethan noted the green-and-silver prefect's badge on his robes. He had light blond hair neatly combed atop a pale pretty face. "What's going on here?"

"Oh look, it's the blood traitor," snarled the speaking Hufflepuff.

"If you got nothing new to say, Farley, piss off before I give you detention," His voice had a high, noble-like lift to it.

"For what?" Farley scowled.

"For verbal abuse, and lack of originality," he pulled a small black notebook from his robe pocket. "Shall I book you for the Detention Chamber today or tomorrow?"

Farley's two goons looked ready to draw their wands on the Slytherin. Farley closed within inches of his face.

"You better watch your back, Malfoy. You and your little Traitor Club aren't long for this world," Farley and his goons stalked off.

"Thanks, Scorpius," said Hugo.

"No problem," replied Scorpius Malfoy. "Remember, if he does anything, let me know and I'll hit him with detention,"

"If he complains, you could lose your badge,"

"He wouldn't dare. The Board's problem is with the Squibs, not you. Unfortunately," He gave Ethan, Timothy and Varun a slight commiserative look. His gaze naturally lingered on Ethan, because he didn't recognize him.

"My name's Ethan Chen," Ethan thought he would take the initiative this time. "I hope you don't mind if I consider joining your club,"

"Not at all," Scorpius was of a refined type of manner and handsomeness, the sort of guy girls thought a prince should look and behave. "Do you know how to play chess?"

Ethan smirked. He was no grandmaster, but he was part of a chess team when he was younger, before he switched interest to coding. "A little,"

The clubroom was a large classroom with most of the desks cleared. Several desks remained, each featuring a chess set and two or more couch chairs surrounding it. Only one pair of members was currently in, and they were napping with magazines over their heads and feet on the desk.

As Scorpius went over to shake the two up, Ethan whispered to Timothy. "What's a blood traitor?"

"A pure-blood wizard who err…doesn't hate Muggles and Muggle-borns,"

"Well that's rather broad,"

Ignoring the sleeping members, Scorpius found a seat and started reading a chess opening book. So far, it didn't look like a facility for breeding the next Garry Kasparov.

Standard wizard's chess was different from regular chess in only one way: the players did not move the pieces, the pieces moved themselves on the player's command. When a piece was captured, it was brutally attacked by the capturing piece, leaving tiny stone chunks of heads and limbs strewn across the battlefield. At the end of the match, the shattered pieces automatically reconstituted and returned to their initial positions.

"So when did you join this club?" Ethan asked Timothy as they started their match.

"Oh. Well, err, after we tried complaining to McGonagall, you know, about some of the students, we became, err…"

"High-value targets?" said Ethan.

"Right. They were stalking the entrance to the Squib Quarters, waiting for us. We ran away after they hit us with a jinx that made us cluck like chickens,"

"Did you have to include that?" said Varun.

"Anyway, Hugo found us and brought us to this room. They couldn't enter since the door can only be opened by a club member. Hugo undid the jinx, and convinced Scorpius to let us join so we can use this room to wait them out whenever they were outside the Squib Quarters,"

"I was sort of running from them, too," said Hugo, in an attempt to appear less heroic.

Ethan defeated Timothy, then Varun, both quite handily since they were novices. Hugo then sat with him for a match. He was a decent player, but a little conservative and over-thought his moves. He played like someone who wasn't playing to win, but to survive as long as possible.

"You play against stronger opponents often?" Ethan asked. "Like family members?"

"How did you know? My family likes to play chess. My sister's the best, followed by my father, then my mother who can't understand how that's possible," Hugo smiled wistfully. "I suppose you know who my parents are,"

"The name Weasley gave me a clue. Queen to d7," Ethan's queen rushed to Hugo's second rank, knocked a knight off his horse and clobbered them both to pieces with her sceptre. "I noticed you didn't say anything to Farley,"

Hugo was surprised at his forwardness. "What was I supposed to say?"

"Maybe that you support your parents?"

Hugo glanced around to confirm that no one had overheard them. Timothy and Varun were playing their own game at another table. "Be careful who you say that to. Even among other Squibs,"

Ethan defeated Hugo easily after that, since he was distracted by his comments. As the broken pieces reassembled themselves, the two members who had been sleeping approached.

"Hugo, did you just lose?" asked Lorcan Scamander.

"Yes, quite badly,"

"Don't worry, I shall avenge you," declared Lysander Scamander. He took Hugo's seat. "I'm Lysander. This is my brother Lorcan,"

"Ethan. d4,"

"You seem vaguely familiar. d5,"

"We take C.O.C. together. You two were the only ones crazy enough to pet the Questings. c4,"

"Oh, Questings aren't dangerous. They only attack those who try to hunt it," assured Lorcan. "Unless it's hungry. Then it'll attack anything,"

"Are the two of you accelerated students?" asked Ethan.

"Accelerated? What do you mean? Pawn to c4," The pawn that Ethan served up for his Queen's Gambit was wrestled to the ground and beheaded.

"Did you skip a year or start school early? Knight to f3,"

"Only for C.O.C.," said Lysander. That explained to Ethan why they were with the fifth-year Ravenclaws in Care of Magical Creatures class, but not during Astronomy. "It's one of the few ways to obtain O.W.L.s in more than three electives. Not that we're bothering to do that. We just couldn't stand the third-year material,"

Ethan defeated Lysander, then Lorcan as well when he stepped in. They were both solid players, but lacked experience from the way they obviously stared over the pieces they were thinking about, which gave Ethan easy clues to their next move. They underestimated the value of position over material advantage, so Ethan was able to lure them into many exchanges that seemed fair but actually gave him offensive momentum. He also distracted them by encouraging them to demonstrate their impressive knowledge of magical creatures.

"Well, he took three moves longer to beat me than you. I guess this officially means that I'm smarter," said Lorcan.

"No, he took a minute longer to beat me," countered Lysander.

"Because the two of you were talking about dragon hoarding habits,"

The two of them made such a commotion that the club president himself had to descend from on high to restore order and balance to the clubroom.

"I see you _do_ know how to play," said Scorpius. Everyone was now gathered around their table to witness this showdown. "If you win, I'm afraid joining this club is going to be compulsory,"

"Clever," said Ethan. "But I'm not going to throw a game due to an empty threat,"

"d4," began Scorpius.

"Knight to f6," The brows of the crowd knitted with curiosity.

"c4,"

"g6,"

Everyone showed varying degrees of confusion. "I've never seen this opening before," said Hugo.

"Knight to c3,"

"Bishop to g7. It's the King's Indian Defence," said Ethan. Scorpius glanced up at him.

Varun frowned. "I don't get it,"

"It looks like you're just giving Scorpius the centre," said Lorcan.

"It's a hypermodern opening. The main principle is to let white occupy the centre, then take it from him,"

Scorpius stopped looking at the board and glared at Ethan. "Who are you?" He demanded sharply.

Everyone, including Ethan, was taken aback by his sudden hostility. "What?"

"King's Indian Defence, hypermodern openings – those are Muggle chess terms. We don't have them," He opened his chess opening book and showed him the content page. There was not a very long list of content, and though the book was an inch thick, that was nothing compared to the massive tomes that made up a comprehensive chess opening encyclopaedia.

 _Oh, shit._ All the wins had gotten to his head and made him careless. His first defence was to feign ignorance. "You don't?"

"No," said Scorpius.

"Then how come you know them?"

"Because I'm a rare instance of a wizard who takes chess seriously,"

Ethan reviewed his situation and understood that he was still safe. He simply had to stand firm against his interrogation.

"Well, as a Squib, I don't have many things I can take seriously. So I studied chess. I don't understand what the problem is,"

"Are you really a Squib?" said Scorpius in a low voice. "Or a Muggle?"

A wave of disbelief swept the clubroom. Slowly, Ethan formed his response. "I grew up in New York and I went to a Muggle school. So I learnt chess from Muggle books. But that's hardly evidence that I'm a Muggle. My parents are wizards,"

Scorpius's face made a slight twinge. He knew he had leapt to his accusation. "How do we know for certain?"

"Scorpius," Hugo began in a diplomatic tone. "I'm sure Professor McGonagall did a check to see if they were,"

"Yeah," added Lorcan. "I highly doubt McGonagall would let some Muggle spy slip right under her nose,"

"Right," joined Lysander. "How would a Muggle family even contact Hogwarts?"

Scorpius's eyes bore into Ethan. "You can't be a Squib. You're too arrogant,"

"Well, I'm sorry for having a sense of self-worth, even without magic," said Ethan. Everyone winced uncomfortably.

Scorpius continued. "There's the way you speak as well. You have an adult vocabulary," Timothy and Varun exchanged a look.

"Muggle school stretches English out since they don't have much else to teach,"

"Scorpius, don't you think you're reaching a little now?" said Lysander.

"Yeah. Since when is being well-spoken a Muggle trait?" said Lorcan.

Ethan didn't think they were speaking out for him so much as defending the much more preferable answer. Naturally, no student wanted to face a situation where they were looking at a Muggle spy. Still, Scorpius was forced to relent.

"Sorry," He said, with a little thickness in his throat. "I wasn't thinking straight, and I jumped to a silly conclusion,"

"It's no problem. I'm not offended," said Ethan.

They continued their game. Scorpius was a very cunning tactical player, and sharp enough to avoid many of Ethan's tricks. He made a number of advanced threatening manoeuvres, yet his aggressive style was ultimately undermined by his lack of willingness to make truly bold, sacrificial plays. Ethan could see himself winning eventually, but he couldn't do that now with everyone so suspicious of his intelligence. So he fell for one of Scorpius's baits, exposing his well-defended king. They reached a rook and pawn endgame, where Ethan made a couple more mistakes by dallying in the activation of his king and let Scorpius corner him.

Varun was disappointed. Timothy looked quite relieved. The wizards seemed to suspect with varying degrees of certainty that Ethan threw the game.

"Well, that's a shame," said Lorcan. "For a second, I thought we had a new champion,"

"Rose is still the champion, Lorcan," corrected Lysander. "Even if she doesn't come by anymore, she's still in the club,"

Scorpius's eyes shifted uncomfortably. "One game doesn't mean anything. How about we play again?"

"Sure, but another time. I'm a little burnt out right now," said Ethan.

Ethan spent the rest of the morning giving the others advice on their weaknesses in chess. _That was close,_ he thought while coaching Hugo to victory against both Scamanders at once. He had been in Hogwarts barely more than a day and he almost blew his cover. He needed to watch his mouth more carefully. Though Scorpius had dropped the issue for now, Ethan was certain that he was going to keep an eye on him. It was not a great risk, though, so Ethan still planned to join the club to gain access to the clubroom, and he could definitely use some wizard allies.

At lunchtime, they headed to the Great Hall together but ate at their own House tables. They returned to the clubroom after lunch and introduced Ethan to some interesting chess variants, like 'all-out chess'; this was pretty much both sides yelling constantly at their pieces with no regard to turn order. The pieces moved at a regular speed and one could give them orders to follow continuously. The result was absolute chaos that was barely possible to keep track of.

"Queenside pawns, advance, do not break pawn chain! Knights, chase the enemy queen!" commanded Lorcan.

"Queen to g7, remove the bishop!" yelled Ethan in response.

"Run for your life, bishop!"

Ethan lost thoroughly to the twins due to what they cited as a 'lack of charismatic presence'. Ethan rebutted that he was only getting warmed up and promised to beat them both within three games.

"Hey guys, the duelling tournament's starting," said Hugo, as they were debating what to bet on this deal.

"All right – come on Ethan, we need to grab good seats for this,"

They returned to the Great Hall, where all the tables had disappeared; instead there were now bleachers against every wall, leaving a large space in the middle about the size of a basketball court. The seats were already filling in – they quickly took up some of the remaining front-row seats, with Ethan sitting between Hugo and Timothy. Soon the bleachers were filled near to the brim with anticipating students – Ethan wasn't expecting practically the whole school to turn up. Even most of the teachers were present in their own front row of seats, opposite Ethan.

Two girls that Ethan recognized as Lily's friends sat at a table in front of the teacher's row. They briefly pointed their wands to their throats, and when they spoke, their voices boomed across the Hall as if with a microphone.

"Afternoon everyone, and thank you all for coming," said one of the girls with tight curls of glossy black hair. "I'm Jessamine Berkeley,"

"And I'm Delfina Martelli," said the girl beside, a tall girl with a brown ponytail.

"And we're very excited to be your commentators for this year's Duelling Club Tournament. This is just a little friendly competition between our own members to find out who's the meanest duellist in school. Barring the teachers, of course, because we all know Professor Flitwick and McGonagall would take several days and destroy half the castle. If you too would like to learn to how to fight, our club meets every Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at Classroom 3G. The rules of this tournament are simple – two duellists enter the field and go at it until one forfeits or is hit with an incapacitating spell. This tournament is single-elimination, so every battle counts! Without further ado, let's introduce our first duellists!"

The Hall's chatter fell to silence. Two students entered the Hall from a side door on the far end; they strode onto the field about fifty feet apart. They each drew a large circle with their wands and held it before their face in concentration. A couple of seconds later, their bodies briefly gleamed with an inch-thick coat of blue light. The duellists bowed to each other, then raised their wands in different stances.

Delfina counted down. "Three. Two. One. Duel!"

Immediately, one student fired a jagged beam of light that just missed his opponent's ear. The beam scattered against a hitherto invisible barrier that rippled with blue light just before the bleachers. As the combatants circled each other slinging spells, Jessamine and Delfina provided commentary.

"Bailey's aiming at Hudson's feet – very effective since he's not using Haste,"

"Hudson's counterspelling those low attacks well, nothing's chipped into his Barrier yet,"

According to Professor Thomas's class and Ethan's D.A.D.A. textbook, most wizards would apply a sustained Barrier Charm over themselves if they knew a battle was coming, if they weren't wearing an artefact enchanted with it. It took a couple of seconds to cast, and maintaining it could be draining on one's magical energy reserve – called mana pool – but it would protect against physical impacts and most spells.

The aim of a wizard duel was to destroy the opponent's Barrier, and then hit him with an incapacitation spell, such as _Expelliarmus or Stupefy_. Such spells could chip away a Barrier Charm as well, but were not particularly hard-hitting and easy to counterspell due to their ubiquity. Thus each wizard chose their own repertoire of spells to strike a preferred balance between power, speed, and unpredictability. Most advanced duellists had one or two specialties – a class of spells that one was used to casting. Familiarity made casting faster, more potent and less prone to mistakes.

"Oh, and Bailey's blew himself up with that Slime Spell! That is slime, right? …And Hudson disarms him!"

Ethan played a game with the twins on who could predict the most match outcomes. Ethan was at a disadvantage since he didn't know any of the competitors, so he had Hugo give him a brief rundown of each person as they entered the field. Several matches passed with Ethan trailing a few points behind the Scamanders.

Though not every fight was close, Ethan found all of them fascinating; in the first four and a half months of the war in the U.S., before Ethan was captured, he had only seen news footage of wizards fighting from miles away, mostly just sounds in the distance. If the media could see what Ethan was seeing, it would reinforce tremendously the public belief that wizards were much too dangerous to be left alone, and so needed to be monitored and have their wands taken from them. None of the students so far showed anywhere near the power, skill and efficiency that Harry Potter did in his fight against the Spooks, but even the weakest first-year in this school could kill plenty of humans with just a wand.

Ethan held no hatred for wizardkind as a whole – he was smart enough to understand that most wizards were not a threat to humans. But he held no sympathy for their plight either – civilizations rise, civilizations die, sometimes by their own mistakes, sometimes by plain cruelty of fate. If they were lucky, wizards were looking maybe half a century or more of oppression. If not so lucky, they could be massacred to near-extinction, and what's left of them will be captured and experimented on, perhaps indentured to serve the whim of humans.

Such potential arcs of history were not Ethan's concern though – all he cared about was returning to human civilization. He could not say if Harry Potter was going to keep his word about helping him back. He seemed sincere, but the task could prove too difficult, or he may change his mind. Perhaps Potter was preparing to take him to Hermione Weasley instead, to help the Order of the Phoenix in its futile quest to appeal to human magnanimity. He tried not to invest so much concern for his own fate. His life was just a roller coaster now, of which he had no control. For now, his plan was to take his pleasures where he could.

Two familiar faces stepped onto the field, and the crowd murmured with particular excitement.

"Next up – Lily Potter vs. Rose Weasley!"

Lily and Rose suddenly turned in their direction and waved. Ethan did his best to imitate empty space.

"So uh, that's my sister and my cousin," said Hugo, waving back.

"Really?" Ethan said with surprise.

"Who do you think's going to win, Ethan?" asked Lysander.

"I bet five Galleons on Rose – she's been ripping through the Duelling Club since she joined,"

"No, my five Galleons on Lily – she has five years' experience over her in duelling, and descends from Harry Potter after all,"

"Unfortunately, pedigree isn't as reliable a predictor when it comes to humans,"

Ethan leaned forward to look at Scorpius; he was staring fixedly at Rose with a sad, guilty look.

"So who takes it, Ethan?"

Ethan watched the two of them bow and raise their wands, sporting smiles on both their faces. The information he received suggested that Lily should win, but he sensed a clever knowingness in Rose's smile; she had a plan in mind.

"I think it'll be a draw,"

"You know that means they'll have to incapacitate each other at the same time?" said Hugo.

"Three. Two. One. Duel!"

Lily and Rose immediately cast the Haste Charm upon themselves; it granted them a dramatic boost in speed, but could only be maintained for a few minutes before the toil on body and mana pool was too great. Lily dashed to Rose's left with speed like a racing ice skater, becoming a blur of black robes and streaming red hair. She aimed her wand and three fireballs the size of watermelons blasted towards Rose. Each casting was fast and powerful despite being thoughtcast – that is, without the incantation or wand flourish. Rose dodged one and countered the other two – with two wand flicks, the fireballs burst into nothing before they reached her.

Rose retaliated with a series of wand slashes – invisible crescent blades of air rushed at Lily. Ethan could only tell what they were from the marks they left on the field barrier as Lily raced out of their path. It was a wonder how Lily was even able to dodge invisible blades – she had to be watching the movements of Rose's wand and knew how to tell the feints from the real attacks. Rose unleashed a wide horizontal air blade – Lily was only able to dodge it with a jump and mid-air twist, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Lily and Rose showed a mix of both dodging attacks with Haste and erasing them with counterspells, Lily with a preference for the former and Rose for the latter. After exchanging several volleys, Rose caught Lily with something different.

" _Impedimenta!"_

Jinxes, hexes and curses went through Barriers partially depending on the strength of the user and the opponent's Barrier. Lily slowed down to an almost normal speed. Lily pointed at herself and countered the Impediment Hex – while Rose charged up another spell.

A cone of violent sonic waves emitted from Rose's wand – the whole Hall filled with a shrill ringing that made many cover their ears. Lily tried to run out of the cone, but Rose kept her wand trained on her. Lily then stopped and cried out:

" _Lumos Maxima!"_

Ethan was blinded – his vision was stabbed with a large spot of white light. He could hear the sound of fireballs and air blades clanging against the barrier. It was several seconds before his sight finally cleared and he could see Rose on the defensive against Lily. Rose countered one fireball, dodged another, and found herself backed against a barrier. Lily fired another fireball – Rose created a whirling tunnel of wind that took the fireball and U-turned it right back at Lily. Lily easily countered her own spell and threw another fireball, this one finally connecting. Rose's Barrier glowed and absorbed the impact. Lily followed up with channelling a thick jet of flame – it roared as it slowly bit through her Barrier. Rose couldn't counter a channelled spell – as her counterspell pushed the fire back, Lily poured more mana into it, overwhelming Rose with her superior fire mastery. If Rose tried to dodge with Haste, Lily would just chase her with her higher speed.

Rose aimed at Lily's feet – her Pulling Jinx was just strong enough to make one foot slip forward and throw the Flame Jet off her. She followed up with a short sonic blast and another Pulling Jinx. Lily's other foot slipped forward and she fell on her back. Rose attacked her downed foe with a barrage of air blades, descending on her from multiple angles; Lily countered some of them, but several struck against her Barrier.

Lily pointed at her feet and suddenly her soles spewed fire like rocket exhausts. She flew across the floor and up into the air, away from Rose's assault. She rained fireballs down on Rose from above, putting her on the run. She zipped back and forth above her like a strafing plane. They traded more fireballs and air blades, some of them meeting in the air in fireworks. Lily scored two hard-hitting direct hits, while Rose landed slashes at a steady rate with her invisible blades.

"Barrier, Haste _and_ Rocket Charm? She's going to run out of mana soon," said Lorcan.

" _Impedimenta!"_

Rose Slowed Lily again, this time channelling her spell. Lily tried to counter, but was splitting her mana pool between too many spells at once. She landed back on the ground, and both wands aimed at the other in an invisible struggle. Knowing she could not last, Lily stopped countering and charged up another spell. Realizing what was coming, Rose dropped her hex and charged her own spell.

" _Incendio Sphera!"_

" _Vento Sectis!"_

Lily fired a monstrous fireball that was twice her height, and Rose launched a colossal air blade at least twelve feet wide from how it grazed the barrier beside her. The two spells met and exploded in a fiery shockwave – Lily and Rose were both knocked to the ground, their Barriers shattered. They both sat up and aimed –

Rose's wand shot out of her hand and clattered a few feet away. Lily, exhausted, tried to lean back onto the floor, but froze halfway – the Impediment Hex on her finally overcame her resistance. Rigid as a waxwork, she tilted over on her side.

The crowd had no idea who to cheer for. "Uh…" Jessamine consulted a roll of parchment at her table, consulted Delfina, and then turned around to the teachers behind her. "Lily wins?"

About half the Hall roared with cheers and applause for Lily, most of them Gryffindors, while the other half moaned in disapproval, most of them Ravenclaws. Rose picked up her wand and Lily unfroze in about five seconds. They met on the field and had a hug.

"Actually, shouldn't that be Rose's win?" said Lorcan. "She grabbed her wand in two seconds, but Lily couldn't break out of the Impediment Hex for five,"

"Well, in a real battle, Lily would have used _Stupefy_ , not _Expelliarmus_ ," argued Lysander.

"In a real battle, Barriers are a little less useful since both sides will be throwing Killing Curses. Even if a little of the beam goes through, a little dead is pretty dead,"

"With no Barriers, both sides will have more mana, meaning the fight would have been completely different,"

"Which means this discussion is completely moot,"

"So that's a point for me, then," said Ethan.

As the tournament progressed, Lily won a few more rounds with much more ease than her fight against Rose. In the semi-finals, Lily put up a tough fight against her brother James, but ultimately went down. The other contender to make it to the finals was one Torrian Fraser.

Hugo gave Ethan a summary of him in one of his earlier matches. "He's a seventh year, same as James – they're best friends. Torrian specializes in steel manipulation, and…how do I put this –"

"No, don't tell him yet, Hugo," said Lorcan, with an ominous smile.

"Yeah, let him see it for himself," agreed Lysander.

"If you don't tell me everything, how am I supposed to predict the winner?" Ethan argued casually.

"Well let me put it this way – he's won this tournament since his second year. Against seventh-years. By a huge margin,"

Looking at his previous matches, Torrian Fraser was a strong fighter, but he didn't seem exceptionally skilled enough to match Lorcan's claims. Yet in every match he appeared, every eye in the Hall glued itself to him, watching in anticipation for something.

"It's time for the final match, and we're down to club president James Potter and the unbeatable champion Torrian Fraser. Our last club president lasted a minute and three seconds. How long will James last I wonder?"

"Well that's rather demoralizing," said Ethan.

James and Torrian took their places and bowed. Everyone was so excitedly focused on Torrian that Ethan felt sympathetic towards both of them for different reasons. Torrian waved over to where Lily and Rose sat on the opposite bleachers; Lily waved back, a little self-consciously as a few hundred heads in the Hall turned to her.

"How are Fraser and Lily Potter related?" Ethan asked Hugo to confirm what was pretty obvious.

"Torrian is Lily's boyfriend," answered Hugo.

"Three. Two. One. Duel!"

James cast Haste on himself. Torrian flourished his wand and a shining steel shield materialized before him. He equipped it on his left arm and lowered it just in time to block a jet of golden light aimed at his feet.

Torrian raised his wand to the air and three straight steel blades appeared around it, each the size of a longsword. Torrian pointed his wand forward and the swords soared at James.

" _Protego!"_

James used a Shield Charm to deflect the swords; the swords bounced off the blue screen of light he conjured in front of him, spun in the air, then steadied themselves and launched at James again as directed by the slashes of Torrian's wand.

James dashed out of their path at Hasted speed, the swords clanging off the floor. He swung his wand and flung three golden globes of light into the air. Each only the size of a fist, they spread out – then exploded into golden laser beams.

Torrian raised his shield to block one laser, but the other two flanked him and burned into his Barrier. Torrian aimed at one of the beams.

" _Finite Incantatem!"_

The Dispel Spell erased one laser, but the other two started spinning around Torrian, making them much harder to aim at. In addition, James unleashed the spell he was charging.

" _Evanesco!"_

Torrian's steel shield Vanished, leaving him defenceless. Torrian ran; somehow he was unnaturally fast even though Ethan never saw him cast Haste. The lasers chased him, heating the stone floor at his heels, leaving a fading trail a glowing red.

Torrian commanded his swords off the ground to resume their attack; they assaulted James repeatedly, but he repelled every attack with Shield Charms. Torrian swerved and charged straight towards James while he was busy – a sword conjured into Torian's left hand he swung it down on James. It struck James by the shoulder, raising a resounding ring against his Barrier. Torrian swung again, but met only air – James had Disapparated fifty feet away.

The crowd had grown restless from the battle and started chanting a while ago. "Morph, morph, morph, morph…morph, morph, morph, morph…"

Torrian looked around the Hall with a conflicted expression. He shouted something towards James across the field; Ethan couldn't hear over the crowd's chanting and doubted James could hear him either. But James read Torrian's hesitance, and assumed a wizard combat stance. With one hand, he beckoned Torrian to bring on the fight.

It happened in the span of two seconds. Torrian's skin bulged into pure black scales. His clothes melted into his skin. His body exploded in size, his head scraping the clouds of the magically projected sky. But he was no longer human. His four legs were black pillars of muscle and hide, his body a sleek ship in scale armour, his leathery wings black sails cloaking the Hall in shadow. His head was long, reptilian, his mouth lined with thick, curved teeth. Along the contours of his head were spiky ridges, longest at the back of his head, forming a swept-back crown of horns. The ridges travelled the length of his back, down his long muscular tail to a serrated arrowhead tip.

The dragon spread its wings and roared: the mighty cry reverberated over the Hall and shook Ethan from the inside of his ears, through his body and into his bones. Suddenly the Great Hall was all too small and he felt a primal urge to run for his life. The dragon dropped its front legs to the ground; the earth jumped and Ethan hopped an inch off his seat. Some students cheered, others leaned back so far they hit the knees of the person behind them. Some pulled out what looked like antique cameras and trained them on Torrian. Timothy and Varun looked completely paralyzed.

"That, Ethan, is a Hebridean Black Dragon," said Lorcan, brimming with exhilaration. "One of two dragon species native to the British Isles,"

The dragon slowly approached James. James held his ground, his gaze darting about in the formulation of a plan.

"Torrian's forty feet long from snout to tail, at least he was the last time he let us measure. That's pretty good for an adolescent, and dragons only grow bigger and stronger the longer they live," said Lysander.

Slowly Ethan calmed himself and sought answers. "…How? What kind of magic is this?"

"Torrian is an Animagus," said Lorcan in an educational tone. "An Animagus is a wizard capable of transforming his or herself at will into one specific animal. It is a very difficult ability to attain, out of reach for the majority of wizards,"

"But that's just for an ordinary Animagus – someone who turns into an ordinary animal like a cat or a mouse," said Lysander. "Even more difficult is becoming a Mythic Animagus – someone who can turn into a magical creature. There have only been a few recorded Mythic Animagi throughout history. There are currently only two in Britain. One is Professor McGonagall. The other is Torrian Fraser,"

"Whose Animagus form happens to be a dragon – the most powerful creature there is," said Lorcan.

Ethan's mind finally came to grips with the reality that he was staring at a true, real-life dragon. He had heard about them in news reports, but never saw any photographs of them as he was taken by Potter before the first dragon reserve was captured. Like any boy, Ethan loved the raw power and majesty of dragons – but no dragon of any fantasy Ethan enjoyed could ever be more terribly awe-inspiring than the real thing he beheld now.

James Disapparated behind Torrian, then above him. A rectangular plane of yellow light materialized at James's feet and he flew on it around Torrian's head. James aimed a spell that the dragon's eye, a marbled purple with vertical pupils – and the spell ricocheted off a Barrier. Suddenly James's plane disappeared; James Disapparated as he fell through the air and landed to Torrian's right. The dragon turned its long neck and roared at James – steel sword emerged from nothing and rained upon him. They pounded against his Barrier and promptly shattered it in a burst of blue light.

"He can still cast magic?" Ethan breathed.

"Yes he can. He's still a wizard, after all. And he still has his wand…somewhere,"

James turned on the spot and Disapparated, leaving the chains to fall to the air. He reappeared in front of the dragon and made his final effort; he swung his wand furiously and sent out beam after beam of golden light. The beams curved and swirled in long arcs and struck the dragon from various angles. The beams exploded against his hide, bathing him in a golden shimmer, and doing absolutely nothing. James fired another volley at the dragon's head. Torrian only needed to tilt his head left and right to keep most of the beams from hitting his eyes; those that did only struck against the Barrier protecting them.

James fired and fired, and slowly the beams became slower and thinner until James dropped to one knee, holding his head as if dizzy. His wand then popped out of his grasp.

"Torrian Fraser wins!" yelled Jessamine, to thunderous cheers and applause, particularly from Hufflepuffs. In two seconds Torrian shrunk back to human form and went to shake James's hand. "A minute and five seconds against his dragon form. A new record!"

"A new record of going easy on people," commented Lysander. "He spent half that time just standing there,"

"Wish he'd used his dragonfire," said Lorcan. "After all the trouble Professor Flitwick went through to make sure the barrier wouldn't break this year,"

"I'm pretty sure that would kill James," Hugo remarked.

"Torrian should challenge Professor McGonagall to a duel," said Lorcan, as Jessamine wound down the event with the announcement of the top three – Torrian, James and Lily. "I'd do anything to watch that, and probably die from random debris,"

"So what do you think, Ethan?" asked Lysander.

Ethan needed more information. This was easily the most power he had ever witnessed from the wizarding world. How many people were there like Torrian Fraser? How would they fare against human military? What else were they capable of? From the way the Ministry panicked at every military movement, Ethan had been under the impression that wizards were thoroughly outmatched and just stalling their eventual defeat. He was pretty sure they still were, but if this tournament showed him anything, it was that wizards may still have some tricks up their sleeves.

This war that Ethan thought was slowing down may become bloodier yet.


	7. Chapter 7 - Troublemakers

Chapter 7 – Troublemakers

"Ethan, you really hit it off with those wizards," said Varun to Ethan during lunch on Wednesday. Lorcan and Lysander had just waved to him as they passed by the Squib table to the Ravenclaw table. Ethan spent a fair amount of time at the Chess Club every day, and had a lot of friendly games and conversations with its members about chess, Muggle school, and other miscellaneous topics.

There was a slight cautionary tone in Varun's voice. "Something wrong with that?" said Ethan.

"Nothing. Just remember not to get your hopes up. They'll never see us as one of them. At most, you can only be 'that interesting Squib' or 'my one Squib friend'. Nothing more,"

Ethan didn't need Varun to remind him about the dangers of hope. "I'm okay with that," He replied.

After lunch, they had D.A.D.A, followed by Muggle Studies. Muggle Studies was an eye-opening class. What was eye-opening was how extraordinarily simple was the material that was meant to educate students on human society. Granted, most humans were hugely ignorant and misinformed about magic society, but they had only just learnt of its existence a year ago. Ethan knew that men at the top like Potter and Lowther were much more knowledgeable about humans, but this fifth-year class was just painful to hear.

"Most Muggles do not own guns. Only police and the military are allowed to carry guns. Bullets do not stun, they go straight through your body – so these Muggles use lethal force against every criminal, no matter what their crime,"

The Muggle Studies professor was a thickset middle-aged man with a tawny comb over by the name of Herbert Crawford. He went on exclusively about the uncivilized, savage ways of human society. Throughout the lesson, Ethan resisted a great urge to correct his every sentence, for he was egregiously misrepresenting where the uncivilized savagery of humankind lay.

On Thursday, his first lesson was Transfiguration, taught by a gaunt man in his forties with a short crop of salt and pepper hair. Professor Wayne Scrooby hated his job and let every student know it. He trudged into class like a man sentenced to pick litter for community service and regarded everyone at all times with the same bored face that was pulled long from a lifetime of sourness.

"I have the results of Monday's test," Scrooby drawled listlessly. "I see a lot of you have emptied out four years of Transfiguration knowledge to make room for this year's. That won't do, obviously, as you'll be tested on all five years of material for your OWLs. I'll be handing back your tests in order of highest to lowest score,"

 _What kind of teacher does that?_ Yesterday, Scrooby had sprung a test on the class for their first Transfiguration lesson of the new term. Ethan could not answer a single question, such as _'Illustrate in casting notation the wand flourish for the Bird-Conjuring Spell.'_ So he left his entire test paper blank, save for his name.

With each name and score Scrooby called out, the offending student got up from their desk and walked to the front of the class to receive their test paper and a demeaning glare. Not only was this a great waste of time, it was also not the kind of pressure that contributed to a healthy learning environment. As the scores went lower, the atmosphere hardened, until it was thick as granite when he came to the failing grades. Each student here took their paper with their heads bowed, and Scrooby tightened his hollow cheeks at them – he wanted to make some snarky comment for each failure, but was restrained by the forces of parental complaint.

Finally he came to the last paper. "Ethan Chen. Zero,"

Ethan calmly stood up and crossed the centre of the classroom towards Scrooby. As he faced down the man's disdainful gaze, Ethan wondered what legitimate grounds were for dismissing teachers in wizard school. If the process was anything like the bureaucratic labyrinth of New York City's public schools, maybe he could understand why this teacher was still around.

"Were you sleeping during my test?" Scrooby asked. He was waiting for this moment. Ethan couldn't wait to hear what great lines he had prepared for him.

"No, sir," Ethan looked down submissively like the rest of the students. A part of him wanted to act cocky and provoke a confrontation, but given his need to stay low, he wasn't about to stir up trouble for nothing.

"Then why is this blank?" He raised his paper to show the class all the unanswered questions.

"I went to a Muggle school. I've never studied Transfiguration before,"

"Then why didn't you say so when you took the test? What a waste of parchment. I do not want to see this again. If you force me to set up a remedial class, you will regret it," Scrooby shoved Ethan's paper into his chest. "If you Squibs had House points I'd take twenty from you. Go,"

Ethan returned to his seat. What annoyed him wasn't Scrooby's selfish contempt, it was the smirks on some of the students who thought they were looking at an idiot.

Scrooby went over the answers of their test. It appeared about as torturous for him to teach as it was for them to listen. Halfway through his droning, a gleeful shrill cackle filled the classroom. Everyone's eyes darted about the ceiling, some instinctively lowering their heads and shielding them with their arms.

A squat, miniature man emerged from invisibility, floating over Scrooby's head like he was lounging on a couch. He was dressed in a ruff-collared tunic and breeches of the most garishly clashing colours and patterns imaginable, like a sixteenth century jester. He had a squashed face half-filled with a Cheshire grin, orange eyes squinting evilly, and a stocking cap tipped with a bell to cover stringy black hair.

Just as Scrooby looked up to behold this intruder, the tiny man squeezed a bottle of ketchup onto his face, applying an ice cream-like swirl.

With an angry swipe of his wand, he Vanished both the sauce and the ketchup bottle. "Peeves!" He pointed his wand upwards and fired a jet of white light, but the tiny man cartwheeled out of the way, snickering.

Peeves, Hogwarts' resident poltergeist, floated over the class and made a mocking face at Scrooby, pulling open his mouth and wagging an elongated tongue. Scrooby pulled a flask of clear liquid from his robes and threw it at Peeves. Peeves swiftly dodged it and students flinched as the flask shattered on the other side of the classroom.

Peeves glanced back at the clear liquid. "Is that Dispel Water? You have to do better than that, Scroogey," His voice was sharp and greasy.

"I'll exorcise you myself, you disgusting spirit," Scrooby fired another white beam at Peeves. Peeves dodged and cackled madly, then flew out of the classroom, passing straight through the door. Scrooby, completely neglecting his teaching duties, stormed out the classroom after the poltergeist.

The class was apparently quite accustomed to this, as they wasted little time in moving to their groups to chat. Ethan was about to go over to Timothy to look at his test answers, when Baldur Farley and his goons surrounded his desk.

Farley snatched Ethan's test paper off his desk and smirked at its pristine pages.

"So you went to Muggle school, American Squib? They don't teach you how to write over there? What do you learn, how to make burgers?"

Ethan honestly couldn't come up with a lamer insult if he tried. Farley also had a lot of gall to make fun of his test when he had failed his as well.

"We learn advanced mathematics, geography, physics, chemistry –"

"I don't give a fuck what you learnt from fucking Muggles," Farley kicked Ethan's chair, sending both him and it toppling over. "Filthy animals that only eat and take up space. Like roaches. And you Squibs are the same,"

Students who were furthest watched casually while those who were closest did their best to act like nothing was happening. Ethan stood up, holding down his rising anger under a controlled expression. He couldn't fight back, he couldn't take revenge with tools or magic, but he could burn him with words. He could show these amateurs what real verbal abuse sounded like – but it would be a foolish move to make. With his non-existent clout, all he would achieve was raise Farley's ire. There was little Ethan could do but take it until Farley grew bored.

"Hey!" One girl stood up from her desk. "Fuck off, Farley,"

Farley and his goons turned their heads to her. "Potter. You defending Squibs now?"

Lily stared down the three burly Hufflepuffs from across the room. "You're a coward, Farley. Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" She raised her wand, and the three goons reacted by pulling out their own. The air thickened – those who were seated between Lily and the Hufflepuffs tensed up, prepared to bolt out of the way any second.

"Your father's the coward, Potter. Running and hiding, even when he's bloody immortal. And protecting Muggles – he should let the Knights kill them all,"

Delfina stood up beside Lily. "Gobshites like you are why the Aurors can't find the Knights,"

Farley threw a venomous sneer at Delfina. "And they never will. The Knights are the only people really fighting this war. If you love Muggles so much, why don't you just join them and die?"

Jessamine now stood up beside Delfina. "You take that back now, Farley, or we'll make you,"

Just then, the classroom door opened and Scrooby returned. His hair was flat and wet. His eyes swept over the audience of students all turned towards six students with their wands raised. His gaze passed over Ethan like he was a dead roach.

"The bloody hell are you all doing? Fighting in my classroom?" He rounded on Farley who was closest to him.

"No, sir," He said thickly.

Scrooby next glared at Lily.

"Farley was having a go at, um –"

"Ethan,"

"Ethan. And I told Farley to knock it off,"

"Did any of you throw any spells?" Scrooby directed at the six standing students with wands drawn. They all shook their heads and said 'No' softly.

"Then I don't care. Get back to your seats,"

For the remainder of the lesson, Ethan was fuming. Most wizards seemed to be under the impression that Squibs and humans were stupid, less evolved. They think wizards were to humans the same way humans were to Neanderthals. Us, more primitive? When they use _owls_ for communication? The irony was staggering.

If Lily hadn't intervened, would the whole class have just watched Farley jinx him, practice transfiguration on him? And when Farley called the Knights of Walpurgis heroes, more than a few faces nodded in consent. Wizards suppressed the rights of goblins for centuries, they think nothing of bodily danger, they alter memories and subjugate minds without a second thought. And yet humans were the uncivilized savages?

For the past few days, Ethan had not been paying much attention to lessons; he had focused on examining the teachers and his fellow students instead. But now, he could no longer leave them afflicted with the misconception that humans were lesser. They thought he was an idiot for failing one test – they had no idea. Ethan was one of the most notorious black hat on the U.S. government's cyber watch list. He hacked into U.S. businesses and the correspondences of executives and politicians, and broadcast all their dirty secrets to the world. He entered ninth grade of high school at twelve years old. Harry Potter didn't kidnap some ordinary boy for the Ministry – he kidnapped a genius with a criminal record.

 _I'll show you who's primitive. I'll show you what real intellect looks like._

* * *

Rose was the first Weasley in all history to be Sorted into a House other than Gryffindor. When the Sorting Hat fell over her head, it mumbled to itself 'Hmm, it's about time!' and declared her a Ravenclaw. She was so faint, she could have died right on that stool. She could not sleep that first night, fretting that her parents would disown her. But they visited Hogwarts the next day to congratulate her – her mother was extremely happy for her, and told her that Ravenclaw would help her to great things. When Hugo was Sorted into Hufflepuff two years later, they said the same thing to him.

Now her parents were ambassadors to the Muggles in London, with the whole wizarding world believing they were traitors. She and her brother wanted to go with them, but they wouldn't allow it. Soon after the U.S. military entered Britain in force, her parents started calling for the Ministry to stand down. Did they learn something that the Ministry didn't know? Were the Muggle allied forces with their technology truly greater than magic? Rose couldn't make any sense of it without more information, but her uncle took the same stance as Professor McGonagall in her Start-of-Term address – this was the business of adults, and students should focus on their studies.

Yet it was getting harder to focus on tests with news of the world war against wizards growing direr every day. Was sitting in class even the right thing to do? Was there a point to passing exams if they couldn't win this war? Perhaps she ought to spend more time in Hogwarts' Army, crafting supplies for the militia. The Ministry said they didn't need more supplies, but James still wanted to create a larger stockpile for Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, as well as form a team to develop new potions and artefacts that could turn the tide of the war.

So here Rose was in the school library during what was supposed to be lunch time; she pored through towers of books on advanced potion and artefact crafting, scribbled and then scratched out half-baked ideas on sheets of parchment. She doubted she could come up with anything the Department of Mysteries hadn't already passed over, but she made the effort anyway to ease the guilty restlessness in her chest.

There was only one other student along Rose's row of study tables, seated far away on the opposite end. He was an Asian Squib, perhaps fourth or fifth-year, with as many books piled around him as she had. He was definitely studying with much more focus than her, never once lifting his eyes off the table. He wasn't cramming or slogging through the pages for a looming test; his face was alight with fascination, and he took notes like he was on the verge of a great discovery. The last time Rose was so engrossed seemed so long ago.

Quite unexpectedly, her brother Hugo emerged from an aisle and sat next to him. Hugo noticed her and waved – the boy lifted his head towards her and Rose quickly pulled her head down like she hadn't noticed anything. Rose covertly watched Hugo chat with the boy, only dimly processing any more of her research. A few minutes later, Hugo came over and sat across her at the table.

"Rose, do you mind if I give a copy of your first to fourth-year study notes to a friend?"

Rose had given Hugo a copy of her own notes for use. "What subject?"

"Um, all of them,"

"I don't mind," It was a peculiar request though. It was definitely too early to be revising past-years' material for OWLs.

"Thanks," Hugo left the library, presumably heading to his dorm room to retrieve the notes and duplicate them. Rose tried her best to return to brainstorming. Intermittently, she sneaked a peek at the boy to see if he was still powering through his books like cake. Once, they looked up at the same time and made eye contact – then immediately dropped their heads back down. She didn't dare look up again, else the boy might do something crazy like come talk to her.

Hugo returned and handed a stack of parchment sheets to the boy. Rose couldn't tell what his reaction was to the notes as she was keeping her sight glued to the table. Soon, Hugo came back to Rose's table.

"He asked me to thank you. He says the notes are very helpful. Very concise and organized,"

"Oh. He's welcome. He's revising a little early though, isn't he?"

"He's not revising. He just came into Hogwarts this term. He went to a Muggle high school before here,"

That sounded difficult in many ways. Rose was curious but also slightly disappointed; so he was only catching up on early-years material, not on the verge of a great discovery.

"He's quite interesting to talk to. He's not scared of us like most Squibs,"

"How do you know him? Is he a new classmate?"

"No, he's in fifth year. He's the newest member of the Chess Club,"

So he was possibly like the other two Squibs Hugo invited to use the clubroom as a sanctuary against bullies. Rose didn't mind, but she heard some of their members left angrily when Scorpius let them stay. Besides the two Squibs, the club only had Hugo, the Scamanders and Scorpius left.

"He's a very good chess player," said Hugo. "Better than Scorpius,"

Rose took this claim with a grain of salt. "Really?"

"Yeah. Want to challenge him to a game?"

"No. Not right now," Rose wasn't in the mood to deal with new people.

"Okay then," said Hugo diplomatically. After a careful pause he said, "You should come back to the club some time,"

She was afraid he would bring this up again. "I'm really busy. I'm doing four NEWTs this year, I got Duelling Club, I'm in Hogwarts' Army, and I have prefect duties. I'm also helping Lily pick up in Transfiguration and Potions,"

"And when you're done with all that, you can drop by the clubroom to relax. We're not training for tournaments or anything,"

"It won't be relaxing," said Rose softly.

"Because of Scorpius? What are you worried about? Help me out here,"

Rose's chest gave a painful twinge. "It's complicated. You wouldn't understand,"

"I won't understand that he confessed to you, you rejected him, and you've been avoiding him ever since?"

Rose whirled her head around to confirm that no one had overheard that – there was still no one else nearby, and the boy should be too far away to hear them.

"I'm not avoiding him," It would have been hard to do so anyway since they had prefect meetings and took many classes together. "We still talk to each other,"

"But you don't hang out like you used to,"

"It's none of your business," she said, an edge rising in her voice.

"It's been months. Surely you can go back to being friends? That's all that Scorpius wants,"

"Can we stop this? This is a library," Rose stated curtly. She knew he meant well, but she didn't appreciate her little brother trying to interfere with her personal life.

"All right then," Hugo backed down. "See you, sis,"

He left the library again, glummer than when he entered. Rose felt wretched; there was no way she was going to accomplish any quality of research or study. She thus returned the books she'd read to a trolley, borrowed the rest, and headed to the Great Hall for lunch.

Lunch time was almost over with relatively few people left in the Hall. Rose took a space at her House table; the group of girls that was nearest noted her arrival and dropped their conversation to a whisper. A couple of them threw her irritated looks for deigning to sit so close, even though she was fifteen feet away and at the edge of the table.

Most of the meat dishes and pies were gone, though that suited Rose just fine – she took a bowl of pasta salad and scooped some into a smaller bowl that automatically appeared before her. She always thought that Hogwarts' kitchens overdid the number of heavy dishes, which were liable to make students drowsy during class. She forwarded a suggestion to Professor McGonagall to have the kitchens provide a healthier variety, which she did. That suggestion earned her some ire from fellow students, especially after someone exaggerated the details to make it sound like she was trying to put the school on a vegetarian diet. It was just one of many circulating rumours that made people, at best, reluctant to approach her within eyeshot of others.

"Ah, Rose. Eating alone again?"

Three Slytherin girls had stopped in front of her, all sixth-years like herself. Heading the group was the elegantly beautiful Iris Lascelles. Like Rose, she too had a prefect's badge pinned to her robes. She was svelte and carried herself with a finely tuned grace like a court-mannered princess. Her pale blonde hair was tucked behind her ear on one side and fell like a silken waterfall to her mid-back. Her skin was delicately fair and her eyes a frosty grey to complete her aura of ethereal, untouchable beauty.

"Poor thing. Why don't I join you?" Iris turned to her two friends. "Daphne, Clytie, can you go on ahead, I'd like a little chat with Rose,"

"Sure, Iris," The two of them exited the Hall with barely hidden smirks, and Iris sat down across from Rose.

It was implicitly understood that sitting at another House's table was something one could only do if invited, and even then, should not be made into a habit. An acceptable period between such occasions was two weeks for those of average social standing. Iris had no worries in that regard, as she was widely considered the prettiest, most popular girl in school, with only Lily possibly coming close.

"How are you, Rose?" Iris's voice was smooth and naturally sultry. "It can't be easy, with so many directing anger at you for your parents' wrongdoing," She laced her manicured fingers together and rested her chin on them, watching Rose poke at her salad.

"I'm fine, Iris," She tried to say as peacefully as possible.

"That's good. I hear you turned down Andrew McCormick yesterday,"

"You hear things fast,"

Rose should have run away right then; she knew she could never win any verbal contest against Iris. Yet a foolish sense of pride blinded her from recognizing the situation at that time.

"What can I say? I'm a glutton for gossip. So why did you reject him?"

"I wasn't interested,"

"You mean you didn't find him interesting? My, Rose," Her voice lifted with faux surprise. "People say you're cold and arrogant, but I didn't believe them,"

Rose was almost certain it was Iris who started those rumours about her, but she was never able to trace anything to her directly.

"That's not what I said,"

"No? Why then? Is it because he wasn't smart enough for you?" Iris's courtly tone rose with the slightest tinge of bitterness. "Or you're too busy with your studies? How many guys have asked you out now?"

"I don't know," Rose honestly did not, and did not want to keep track.

Iris's frosty eyes sunk into her, examining her honesty. "A lot," She knew the answer, but did not want to tell her. "That salad looks far too plain. Here, have some more dressing,"

Iris took a sauce boat of vinaigrette dressing and emptied its entire contents into Rose's bowl, drenching her salad.

"It baffles me why so many guys fancy you. It really does," Iris's voice fell low. "You don't even _do_ anything,"

Rose was so tired; every sector of her life was caving into her, and she was so woefully ill-equipped to deal with any of these problems. She longed for the simplicity of her earlier years at Hogwarts, when life was only about doing well for tests and earning her parents' praise. When she could sate her endless curiosity for everything from Arithmancy to Transfiguration with the safety of believing it was the most important thing in the world. Now it seemed as though she spent most of her life learning nothing of import.

"What do you want, Iris?" Rose asked wearily. If she had just one full answer to one of her problems, she could work towards solving it.

"What do I want?" Iris echoed, her eyes widening. Maybe Rose imagined it, but even she revealed a hint of uncertainty. "I want you to not exist. I want you to stop being you,"

Iris stood up and left the Hall. Rose ate the rest of her salad, powering through the sourness, and soon left for her next class.

* * *

It was Saturday morning, and the day of the first Hogsmeade weekend of the term. Every fortnight or so on a weekend, students of third-year and above were allowed to visit Hogwarts' neighbouring village to browse its stores from morning till evening. Despite living there now, Lily enjoyed every Hogsmeade weekend no less than anyone else. They used to live in the town of Ottery St Catchpole, but they had their house teleported to Hogsmeade about a year ago, just before the town was attacked. She got to know the village a lot better since, and made friends with almost all the shop owners along High Street.

"No, I can't accept extra sweets, I have to pay for them," said Lily, fishing in her purse for more coins.

"Just take them dear, we have too much stock," said Mrs. Flume, pressing a carrier bag into Lily's arms.

Mr. and Mrs. Flume were a really sweet elderly couple who ran Honeydukes, a candy store with a dazzling variety of the most delectable treats imaginable. Entering the store was like stepping into a kaleidoscopic dream; there were barrels full of Every-Flavour Beans; on the walls were large tube dispensers of Exploding Bonbons, Tongue-Twist Toffees, and transfiguring White-to-Dark Chocoballs; on the shelves were colourful jars and packages of Chocolate Skulls, Canary Shapes Bubble-Gum and Volcano Bars, which had the address of St. Mungo's Hospital on the wrapper.

"Thank you," Lily eventually accepted the bag with a grateful smile. "How's your family? Can you still contact them without owls?"

"Oh yes, I still contact my son by fireplace," Mrs. Flume answered, glad for the conversation. "But it's a bit of a waste of Floo powder when he's not home. Though I'm sure I hear him running outside every time I call…"

Lily chatted with Mrs. Flume until she felt Torrian's ring turning on her ring finger. Lily lifted her left hand to inspect it.

"What is he saying?" asked Rose who was beside her.

Lily frowned in concentration. "Half turn left, quarter turn right, left, right…I have no idea," Torrian gave her a sheet of the codes he invented, but she didn't bring it out with her to Hogsmeade.

Mrs. Flume was positively agog at the sight of the ring. "My dear Lily, is that an engagement ring?"

"No, no!" Lily quickly waved her arms, shooing the notion. "I-It's just a, a…"

"Pre-engagement ring?" said Rose.

"Y-Yeees," said Lily, reluctantly accepting the term. Then she remembered. "Oh fudge, I'm supposed to decide what we're doing today. Umm, I have to go now, Mrs. Flume. Thank you so much for the extra Frogs!"

Lily and Rose exited Honeydukes. High Street was currently bustling with a healthy stream of black-robed students, replacing stationery at Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, having their hair done at Fairbairns's Hairdressing Salon, or enjoying a drink at the inn and pub of the Three Broomsticks

Lily took out her multi-mirror, held it up at face level and pressed the lowest button mirror to connect to Torrian. His face appeared promptly in the mirror, before a dimly-lit pub that was the Three Broomsticks.

"Lily, did you get my message?" His voice emanated from the pane. Rose stood to the side, out of his line of sight.

"Um, what was it?" Lily asked sheepishly.

"You haven't learnt the codes yet?" His slightly wounded tone made Lily queasy with guilt.

"It's too complicated to be useful," said Rose, stepping beside Lily. "You can just write on the multi-mirror if you want to send Lily a message,"

"You aren't always able to reach your multi-mirror," defended Torrian, his expression turning stiff at the sight of Rose. "The ring is in case Lily's in danger,"

"She's hardly in danger here or at Hogwarts,"

"Ah, okay!" said Lily loudly, before a fight started. "Torrian! Where do you wanna go?"

"You're deciding this weekend, Lily,"

"Okay, erm…" Lily mentally ticked off the list of attractions in Hogsmeade she already went with Torrian. "How 'bout we go for a walk around the Shrieking Shack?"

"A walk?" He sounded somewhat disappointed. He usually chose a café or a shop where he could buy Lily something. "Okay, I'll see you in front of the Shack,"

"Bye," Lily pressed Torrian's button to deactivate the mirror and returned it to her robe pocket.

"Do you like Torrian?" asked Rose flatly.

"W-What? Of course I do," Lily replied immediately. "He's really sweet, and kind, and really cute…he's like a knight, always looking out for me," She looked pensively at her ring and idly wiggled it with her thumb – in code, that was 'thinking of you'.

"What's wrong, then?"

Lily continued playing with the ring; she couldn't take it out though, even if her finger itched, as Torrian's ring would move, too. It wasn't a code, but it definitely would have sent a bad message.

"I don't know…we go out nearly every Hogsmeade weekend and…I guess it's wearing a little thin," They also saw each other every other day at Duelling Club, ate together on the school lawn on Sundays, and spoke every night on the multi-mirror. Lily heard from Jessamine that was considered light for most couples.

"Rose, could you come with me please?" If Lily could change things up a bit, it could be more enjoyable.

"What? I can't do that. It's a date," said Rose. "The last time I tagged along, I could feel the air heat up around him,"

Lily would much prefer to spend the day with Rose; they didn't do that enough at school. They repaired much of their closeness over the summer break, but since returning to Hogwarts they were drifting apart again. Rose was growing sadder, more distant, and acting more like a senior, even though their age was never a factor when they were growing up. The war and stupid gits treating Rose like a criminal were to blame – Lily wanted to cheer her up, but there was only so much she could do without treating the cause.

"What if I gave you these Jelly Slugs?" From her Honeydukes bag Lily pulled out a small bucket of wriggling translucent slugs and dangled them enticingly before Rose. "Will you come with me now?"

"Tempting, but no thanks. I'm going to prepare questions so you can do better in Transfig,"

"Well, take them anyway. Have them while you're preparing those questions,"

Rose accepted the bribe and put one large lime-coloured slug in her mouth. Its tail wriggled outside of her mouth for a moment before she swallowed it whole.

"See you, Rose," Lily stepped forward and clasped her in a hug, pouring all of her love into the squeeze. Rose returned the hug tightly – she really needed it.

"You too, Lily,"

Lily headed over to the Shrieking Shack. Legend has it that it was the most haunted building in Britain, but her father said that was nonsense; it was merely a boarded up, run-down cottage sitting lonely between the edge of Hogsmeade and the mountains. A little beyond the Shack, the whitish barrier doming the village turned visible as she approached.

Torrian walked up to Lily when he spotted her.

"Hey Torrian. Sorry about earlier," Lily pre-emptively apologized for forgetting about their date – again. "I was at Honeydukes, and I got caught up chatting with Mrs. Flume,"

"It's okay," said Torrian softly. "Though I wish you would think of me more often, seeing as we're together,"

"I do think of you," Lily said hastily.

"You were with Rose as well, right?"

"Um, yeah, we were just shopping,"

Torrian had such a gloomy look it was making the Shrieking Shack look cheery. "If you rather spend the time with Rose, it's fine. I'll just try to come up with something better for our next date,"

"No, it's fine! This was my idea, right? C'mon, let's go. There's a great view of the village this way," Lily quickly took her hand in his and led them up a hilly path. Their trail would take them on a scenic route along the mountainside edge of Hogsmeade before turning inside.

They started off with some typical chit-chat about what each had been doing since they last talked, which would be Friday night. There wasn't much to say though, so they were quickly struggling to fill the silence. Lily offered Torrian some sweets from Honeydukes; Torrian declined, but at some insistence he took a Squeaky Chew and ate it. They were supposed to make one talk in a high squeaky voice, but Torrian's innate magic resistance due to his dragon blood made it very difficult for any charm or potion to affect him.

"I heard you almost fought Farley and his friends on Tuesday," Torrian said after another lull in conversation.

"Oh, yeah," said Lily in a high squeaky voice.

"Why didn't you tell me about this? Why did I have to hear about it this morning at the Three Broomsticks?"

"It wasn't a big deal. Jess and Delfi had my back. We would have torched that prick and his prick friends if Scroogey hadn't showed up," Lily popped in another sugary Squeaky Chew. She had to be careful not to eat too much of these, or it will be harder to dodge James's light beams in future.

"I just want to be informed about what goes on with you. Can't you take the time to do that?"

Lily sighed. "Okay, okay," If there was a Good Girlfriend Competition, Lily was pretty sure she would be near the bottom rank. Being attached was turning out to be a lot more work than she thought it would be.

The air was bracingly chilly and the wild smell of alpine grasses and shrubs was always pleasing. From the highest point of their hillside path they could see the whole of Hogsmeade; a tiny collection of cottages sitting under a great arc of trees and mountains. In the distance was Hogwarts Castle, perched on a cliff overlooking a lake, and surrounded by high stone walls. It never ceased to awe Lily how big _and_ small Hogwarts was, taller than the trees of the Forbidden Forest but completely dwarfed by the mountains. It was hard for Lily to imagine anything bigger, but she heard often from her father that the Grampian Mountains were absolutely nothing compared to the mountains he climbed for Auror training.

"Your house is around there isn't it?" Torrian pointed somewhere down at Hogsmeade.

"Eh, around there, yeah," Torrian's finger was a little too vague for Lily to tell if he was pointing at the right end of Hogsmeade. Torrian couldn't see or otherwise perceive her house anyway due to the Fidelius Charm her father cast on it. Only her father could reveal the house's location and thereafter allow someone to perceive it.

"Are your parents in?"

"Probably not. They're busy every day,"

"My mother was always busy as well," Torrian spoke in a wistful voice. "Even when she was home, she spent all their her researching or conducting experiments,"

Lily's longest and deepest conversations with Torrian were about the family they lost. Torrian's father, according to his mother, a heartless monster who left when Torrian was born. Torrian's mother died when he was ten, from a magical experiment gone wrong. A few weeks later, Torrian displayed the ability to morph into a dragon. However, the Ministry released a statement saying that the two events were not linked, as Brianna Fraser had been experimenting on acids and poisons, not Animagus transformation. Torrian himself told the Daily Prophet that his mother never experimented on him. But despite his denial, everyone in school talked about it like it was fact. Torrian appreciated that Lily withheld from making the same conclusion, yet she also found it hard to accept Torrian's explanation that his Animagus ability 'just happened'.

They chatted at length about their parents as they strolled downslope. When they returned to level ground they sat down for a short break on a bench. Soon the topic gravitated to Albus.

"My parents argued about where to bury Albus. My mum wanted him near our old place at Ottery St Catchpole, but my dad said Godric's Hollow was safer. We buried him at Ottery, but in the end both places got attacked," Albus was likely still at the cemetery at Ottery, currently occupied by Muggle forces.

"I never talked to Albus much, since he was a year below me," said Torrian. "But when I first met him at the lake, he said hi and went straight back to drawing. He never asked me to transform or breathe fire on something. He treated me like a normal person,"

Lily reached into her robe pocket and pulled out Albus's sketchbook. She usually carried it with her when visiting Hogsmeade or idling on the school lawn. She turned to the one page she lingered on the most.

"That's Albus," said Torrian. She hadn't shown him the sketchbook before.

It was the only self-sketch Albus ever made, of him sitting on the shore of Hogwarts Lake. She remembered Albus drawing by the Lake hundreds of times, in the exact way the sketch Albus was now doing. Watching him filled Lily with a mellow comfort and sadness, bringing her back to a time when her biggest worry in life was passing exams.

Every time she took out the sketchbook, she tried saying different things to sketch Albus to see how he would respond. He either waved silently, didn't respond, or turned the sketchbook around to show a motivational line. Lily could spend up to twenty minutes saying random things, hoping foolishly for sketch Albus to do something different, or for something new to appear on the sketchbook than the same few sayings.

"How are you?" Lily asked.

The sketch Albus turned his little sketchbook around. Written on it in plain thick letters was _'The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer someone else up,'_ Lily once found Albus jotting down quotes from library books. She was thirteen and didn't know what they were for then, and laughed with James when he called them corny.

She explained to Torrian what the sketch did. "I see," said Torrian, impressed. "So your brother was experimenting with functional portraits. This is pretty good,"

It wasn't nearly as advanced as the portraits at Hogwarts though, which were almost human in the way they could behave. Most of them were enchanted by Helga Hufflepuff herself a thousand years ago. Few painting enchanters since have come close to producing the level of intelligence Hogwarts' portraits could display.

Just then, Lily spotted someone walking past them – it was Hugo, and his hair and robes were stained with a dirty yellow liquid with thick black and brown chunks.

"Hey, Hugo!" Lily ran up to Hugo. She recognized that liquid and its awful, stomach-lurching smell; it was patented fake vomit from the Puke Sacks buyable at Zonko's Joke Shop. "Who did this to you?!"

"Oh, hi Lily, hi Torrian," Hugo sounded unhappy to have been spotted. "It was Farley and his friends,"

"This is too far!" Lily screamed. Even before everyone started calling Hugo's parents traitors, Farley was always picking on Hugo. "We're going back to the castle! Those bastards should be expelled for this!"

"You need approval from the Board of Governors to expel someone," said Hugo plainly. "The ones who want Professor McGonagall gone will barter for more regulations on the school in exchange for their vote. I don't want to cause her trouble for my own sake,"

Every time Lily heard about the Board of Governors, she wanted to stomp something – did they _ever_ do anything good? What on earth were they _for_ , anyway? "Well, we can still have them get detention. Let's go,"

"Hold on," said Torrian. "You should get cleaned up first," He said to Hugo.

"I've tried all kinds of cleaning spells, but this thing is proofed against them," replied Hugo.

"You should be able to wash it off with dragon blood," Torrian pulled out his wand – oak, twelve-and-a-half inches, and custom-made with a string of his own heart for an unparalleled synchrony between wand and wielder. He conjured a bath sponge and grasped it in his right hand together with his wand. With a swipe of his wand, he then slashed his left wrist open and poured the gushing blood into the sponge.

Both Lily and Hugo winced. "Torrian, I'm fine, there's really no need –" said Hugo.

"It's no problem," said Torrian calmly. "I regenerate quickly," He had to slash his wrist again every few seconds to keep the wound from closing. Lily and Hugo had seen him do this before to donate dragon blood to Hogwarts' Army, but that didn't stop it from being hard to watch.

Once the sponge was soaked red, Hugo gingerly accepted it and dabbed it over his head; the blood oozed out and bubbled as it mixed with the fake vomit.

"You can wash off the blood with normal water,"

Hugo pulled out his own wand – ten-and-three-quarter inches, willow, and core of unicorn hair – and bowed his head low. He aimed his wand at his own head. _'Aguamenti.'_ A jet of water sprayed from his wand and rinsed off both blood and vomit from his hair.

"It works! Thanks Torrian," said Lily.

"I'm glad to help," Torrian's kind smile could warm a house.

Hugo thanked Torrian as well and continued to pat himself down with the sponge. "I didn't know dragon blood could do this," said Lily.

"Dragon blood can get rid of most stains," said Torrian. "It has many other properties as well,"

Three brutish figures appeared, entering from an alley behind Hugo. Farley and his goons first approached, spotting Hugo, but stopped when they recognized Torrian. They immediately turned tail and stalked back for the alley.

"Torrian, quick, let's get them!"

"What–"

With a bit of wandless summoning, Lily's wand shot into her grip from within her sleeve. She thoughtcast the Rocket Charm as she leapt forward – the soles of her shoes spewed fire and she soared after the goons. Shifting her feet to steer, she turned the corner into the alley, flew over their heads and twirled in the air to land in front and facing them.

The three of them whipped out their wands – Lily was sure she could take three unskilled meatheads with ease – but before they could cast a spell, a great black tail swung from above and knocked the three of them down like bowling pins. Their wands clattered over the floor and Lily quickly summoned them to her. The great dragon tail shrunk back into Torrian and he closed in, blocking off the alley from behind.

"You're going to pay for what you did to Hugo," growled Lily as the goons rose to their feet.

Farley said nothing, only reached into his robes to pull something out. She summoned it right out of his hands – it was a Puke Sack, still contained in its transparent sac.

"Wow, that's perfect," Lily threw it back in his face. Farley howled as the putrid liquid coated his face.

A raging fire burned in Lily – this was not nearly enough. _"Levioso Puke Sacks,"_ Six more sacs floated out the bullies' robes and into the air above them.

"Lily, wait," Torrian called. "You'll be punished too,"

Lily heard, but it didn't register. She was too full of anger and frustration at so many things. With such a chance to let it out, her body moved automatically.

" _Finite,"_ The Puke Sacks fell and splashed all over the goons. Just moments later, someone entered the alley from behind Lily.

"What is the meaning of this?" exclaimed Professor Slughorn, looking aghast at the puke-splattered scene.

Lily's shoulders slumped. "Oh bollocks,"

* * *

Lily's time at Hogsmeade was cut short. After a series of explanations and a written report, Lily was sentenced by Professor Slughorn to detention with him in his office. It was by far the roomiest and comfiest teacher's office Lily had been in, with a fireplace, plush couches, a dining table for ten, and a private balcony.

"And then your grandfather said to me: 'But Professor, I didn't jinx him – that really is his nose,'"

"Oh God, that's so mean," cried Lily between her chuckles.

"Yes; Severus then threw a hex at James – he deflected it and it hit me. My nose inflated like a balloon and didn't stop growing. James and Severus started duelling. I couldn't do anything to stop them as I was trying to deflate my nose to get off the ceiling. I didn't see much of their duel, but what little I did see was the fiercest duel I had ever witnessed at the time. Those two hated each other, but they had no other equals during their time as students here,"

"Wow," On a number of occasions, not all of them detentions, Professor Slughorn had regaled Lily with stories of her paternal grandfather, the first James Potter, and his friends and enemies at Hogwarts.

"What was the fight like? How did you stop it?" Lily asked excitedly. She sipped some more of the tea they were having at the dining table.

"Oh, I didn't stop it. Your grandmother did. Lily Evans. She yelled at them both and they stopped in their tracks,"

Just as her brother was named after their grandfather, Lily was named after her grandmother, but she knew little about her. Her father had little to say, as she had died when he was a baby.

"What was she like?"

"Ah," Slughorn sipped his tea reminiscently. "She was a little like you, but ultimately very different. For one, she was a bit more studious. One of my brighter students,"

"Ha hah."

"She was feistier as well, like your mother. Always quick to defend others,"

"Also quick to scold others," remarked Lily.

Slughorn chortled, his round belly waggling. "Hoho, yes. A greater stubborn and judgemental side. But I think, most importantly, your grandmother had…good eyes,"

Lily was confused. "Good eyes?"

"Yes. She could see the good in people where others could not, even where the person in question could not see it himself. It gave her quite an affinity for…shall we say troublemakers,"

Now this was juicy information. She was really glad to have gotten detention today. "Woah. She liked bad boys?"

"And 'bad boys' liked her. You have eyes like your grandmother,"

Lily gave a little sigh. "Yes, people tell me I have my father's eyes," She had heard more than a few lines from guys about how gorgeously beautiful her emerald irises were. Torrian used to tell her about them every time they met until she told him to stop.

"No, Albus had your father's eyes. Yours are much brighter. Brighter than your grandmother's, I think,"

Lily sipped more tea to hide her embarrassment. "My grandmum sounds like a smarter, cooler version of me,"

Slughorn set his cup down quietly with a forlorn look in his eye. "Unfortunately, no one is perfect. Your grandmother could see the good in people where others could not. But she lacked the cunning required to draw it out. It left her quite frustrated with those two men in her life. Everyone had a hand in the tragedy that followed…a lot could have gone better…I wish I had done more myself…"

"You're getting cryptic on me, Professor,"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Slughorn snapped back with a smile. "At my age it becomes a habit. Ah, and I'm afraid detention is over, Lily. In future, do try to stay out of as much trouble as you can,"

* * *

Yesterday Ethan got to tour Hogsmeade, the town neighbouring Hogwarts, and browse its many fascinating stores that provided all wizard needs. He was not, however, able to buy anything as he had no wizard money, which was going to be a problem once his supply of ink of parchment ran out. Hugo was kind enough to buy him a Butterbeer and introduced him to most of the stores, until they were suddenly hit with unwashable fake vomit.

Had Harry Potter forgotten about him? Ethan had not heard from him since the man dumped him in this school. He didn't really mind; in fact he was rather enjoying his stay. He would enjoy it much more if there was some day he could get rid of Baldur Farley, who was the most enthusiastic in school on bullying Squibs and Hugo. Maybe Ethan could arrange an accident to have him hospitalized for a reasonable time…or e could have him framed for a serious crime and arrested…but he still needed more research into wizard society to pull such a thing successfully. Whatever he came up with, it would have to be soon…he was starting to reach the end of his tolerance.

"Ethan, I don't understand this part," said Varun, pointing at a line of Ethan's essay parchment over the Squib table. "What is 'doped silicon', and why do you need it in the electrolysis circuit for disassembling this potion?"

Ethan dashed some ground pepper on his scrambled eggs as he answered.

"Because, splitting the desired alchemical compound from a potion requires applying a specific voltage through it which has to be maintained over time. Powering a circuit with a magical battery or electric spell will have fluctuations in the applied voltage, so a voltage regulator is required to reduce impurities, which can be built with semiconductor devices,"

"…Okay…but what does that have to do with 'doped silicon'?"

"Silicon is a semiconductor: its electrical conductivity can be manipulated between conductor and insulator by creating junctions of different types of doping. Doping refers to adding impurities to a semiconductor material in order to –"

"Okay, never mind," Varun returned to roughly paraphrasing Ethan's essay in his own words.

Magic, Ethan had learnt since studying it more in-depth, was astounding. Literally nothing was impossible with the power to alter the laws of physics and create phenomena with one's designed set of properties. The only limitation was magical energy and the ability of a wizard to construct and hold in his mind the totality of a spell's effect. The things they would be able to do with magic and technology…Alas, just as electricity disrupted magical energy and vice versa, humanity and wizardkind were ultimately doomed to clash until one or both were destroyed.

Breakfast was in a tense, foul mood at the Hall. Last night, the Irish Ministry of Magic was overrun and most of its leaders captured. Its militia was still active, but currently scattered and disorganized. Hermione Weasley made a public statement through the BBC for the Irish Ministry's militia to stand down rather than counterattack. She also condemned the Knights of Walpurgis for their retaliation of killing thirty civilian Muggles in Dublin before British and Irish Aurors were able to force their retreat. The comments Ethan overheard from the House tables and even the Squibs suggested that the Knights' massacre was supposed to be the silver lining.

Timothy ran into the Hall and scanned wildly at the staff table, which was empty. He hurried over to Ethan, his face distraught. "Ethan, where are all the teachers?"

"They all left a while ago, probably a staff meeting," answered Ethan.

"But I couldn't find anyone in the staffroom!" cried Timothy. "Where are they?!"

"What's going on?" asked Varun.

Timothy pointed back through the doors. "T-There's Farley and twelve guys outside. They got Hugo – they're going to strip him naked and throw him out the school!"

The Squibs around them that overheard traded looks, then went out the doors to bear witness to this happening. As the doors opened for them, Ethan did spot a crowd gathered at the Entrance Hall. The news carried swiftly across the Great Hall, and from the front to back of the hall every student stood up like a stadium crowd wave and joined the mass departure.

"I'm checking all the offices!" Timothy shouted and left.

"Fucking wizards," said Varun, sitting amidst the throng of students rushing out like there were free cars outside. "Are you coming?"

Ethan picked up a goblet of orange juice and drank it slowly. "Not yet,"

Varun shrugged and left with the swarm. Soon Ethan was literally the remaining person in the Hall. Ethan finished his goblet and mentally gathered himself for what was to come.

"Well, here we go,"

The Entrance Hall, which itself larger than a ballroom, was packed to near capacity, even filling the marble staircase and the balcony above like they were high seats at a theatre. Ethan wormed his way to the front of the crowd and beheld a dramatic standoff. Twenty feet from where the castle front doors should be, was a genuine mob of thirteen students, with Farley at the fore, all with their wands out. Behind him was Hugo, hanging upside down in the air in only his trousers – his robe, jumper and shirt were on the floor, slightly torn from when they were pulled off him.

Standing in front of where the castle front doors should be, were Lily, Rose, James, Scorpius and Torrian. The first four were ready with their wands as well, but Torrian was lying face-down unconscious on the floor, with Lily half-crouched beside him, trying to shake him awake.

"You think he's still alive?" whispered someone behind Ethan.

"– thirteen Stunners to the chest, and he wasn't morphed,"

"Take down that illusion, Weasley, and we'll let you just walk out," Farley looked half-rabid this morning, his eyes wide and his teeth bared like a deranged street dog.

"Put Hugo down, Farley," said Rose, firm but also distressed. There were no oaken front doors behind them, only a solid stone wall, or the illusion of one.

"Farley, when this is over, you are dead. The only one getting kicked out of school will be you," shot James bitterly.

It was generally not a good idea to call the hostage-taker 'dead' in a hostage situation, but Ethan supposed it didn't matter here, with Farley so clearly off his handle.

"You have three seconds, Weasley," snarled Farley. "Or when we take that thing down, we'll throw you out the gates same as your brother,"

"One…" The crowd started to shuffle back, bracing for a fight.

"Two…" Lily straightened up and with the other three shifted into stance. No matter how formidable they were, they were not going to last long against thirteen.

"Thr –"

"Wow, what is going on here?" Ethan stepped forward and spoke in the loudest, most falsely intrigued voice possible. With about the entire student body watching him, Ethan strolled from behind the angry mob of thirteen and stood between them and the noble defenders.

"Ethan?!" Scorpius exclaimed. "What are you doing?"

Ethan whispered to the group over his shoulder. "He's probably going to Stun me, so I'd appreciate some protection,"

Farley immediately threw a Stunner at Ethan. James and Lily both reacted and their Shields deflected Farley's attack. Ethan maintained his air of total nonchalance, but inside he was immensely grateful he wasn't currently unconscious.

"I don't know who you are, but you should get out of the way," said James.

Always in the way, Squibs, like hunks of litter. Ethan addressed the entire Hall. "Oh, there's no need to know who I am. I'm just a lowly Squib. I hate to interrupt this epic battle you're all about to have, but I'm a curious person and I must know –" Ethan pointed with a lazy arm over at the mob. "What exactly are you planning to do with Hugo over there?"

The rabid energy of the mob was high, but they were starting to cool from the sheer strangeness of this clearly suicidal Squib. Farley shouted for all the crowd to hear. "The Daily Prophet wants to ask Weasley's opinion about his mother's statement, but they can't enter the school. I say he should stop hiding around and face the press. _Am I right_?" Farley bellowed to his mob and they bellowed back, _'Yeah!'_

"Ah," said Ethan, nodding thoughtfully. "So you're saying that you'reaware that that's _Hugo_ Weasley you got over there, not Ronald Weasley or Hermione Weasley. Just to confirm – are you aware of that?" He asked in a patient tone.

Farley ground his teeth at him. "Get out of the way, Squib,"

"I take it from that response that you understand the point I'm making here. Even if Hugo's parents _are_ traitors to all wizardkind, surely bothering Hugo won't achieve anything. No, why don't you tell us the real reason you're so obsessed with Hugo?"

All snide whispers and muttering had stopped, filling the Hall with a cavernous silence. All spectators were watching the proceedings like a movie.

"What?" said Farley.

Ethan's calm, condescending delivery was going to be key to pull this off successfully.

"You say you're doing this because, by association, Hugo is a traitor, but you troubling Hugo didn't start this year. No, you've had it in for Hugo for quite some time, long before his parents even went to London. You know, many bullies try to disguise their feelings by acting aggressively towards the target of their affections,"

The pressing silence of the Hall became more like a vacuum due to the crowd's collective intake of breath.

"What?" said Farley.

"Was that too difficult to understand?" said Ethan, grinning at Farley. "You see, when a guy likes another guy very much –"

" _Did you just call me a faggot?"_ The red was rising on Farley's thick face.

"I didn't say anything. But the preponderance of evidence would suggest you have greater inclination towards the male sex,"

There was murder in every syllable of Farley's voice. "I am not a fucking faggot,"

"Explain to everyone then," Ethan raised his voice to the crowd. "Why you are trying to strip Hugo naked. I mean, he's a good-looking fellow, but come on, at least buy him a drink first,"

The tension among the spectators was dropping, and there were murmurs, some snickers. Ethan could see Hugo trying to pull his upper body up, but Ethan couldn't see his face.

"We –" Farley turned back to his mob, looked around at the crowd. "We were making sure he doesn't pull anything out of his robes,"

"You know our jumpers and shirts don't have pockets, right?" said Ethan. "So what are you going to do with his clothes? Actually, no, don't tell me, I don't want to know. If you plan on returning them, just wash them first, all right?"

More smiles were creeping up among the audience. Farley was dumbstruck, so Ethan pressed the attack.

"How is it that you're always meeting Hugo outside the Chess clubroom, and then trying to pass it off like it's a coincidence?" Ethan threw out an effeminately limp wrist. "'Oh hi, Hugo, fancy meeting you here. I hate you so much, I can't stop looking for you. Oh, what _is_ this feeling?'" Ethan clutched tenderly at his heart. There were audible chuckles around them now.

"Do your friends get tired following you on your stalking expeditions?" Ethan addressed the mob behind Farley. "You guys ever want to do your own thing? Why take orders from this pansy? What kind of leader needs twelve wingmen to approach one guy?"

The mob exchanged looks with each other. Whatever patriotic indignation they had was forgotten; they started backing away like they were spectators who accidently stepped into the scene. Hugo dropped onto the floor and picked himself up; someone behind Ethan must have thoughtcast Dispel on him after no one was repelling it any longer.

"There's no need to get others sucked into your sexuality crisis. After you throw Hugo out, what if your feelings don't change? Even if you do get over Hugo, what if you fall for someone else? Are you going to throw out every good-looking guy in school? Soon it'll just be you and me – and before you say anything: I'm very flattered, but I'd think the Giant Squid would be less clingy,"

"You fucking lying Chinese Squib," spat Farley, turning purple with rage amid rolls of laughter. "I'm going to fucking kill you,"

"Okay, but in what order? This is important,"

Farley raised his wand to attack – but what was important was that he had no one backing him up. Someone behind Ethan should be able to take him down, and this whole show should be over –

A bright red Stunning Spell struck Farley, not from the front, but the back. Farley dropped unconscious, and an older student from the mob stepped over his back. Ethan recognized the slicked-back dark brown hair and smooth-faced sneer – he was the Slytherin that hoisted him over the Grand Staircase on his first day.

"You've wasted enough of our time, Squib," the guy spoke with a low and serious viciousness. "But that ends now,"

He addressed the shocked crowd. "All of you! Have you forgotten what the Muggles have done to us?! They won't stop until they take our wands and have us all in chains! And Squibs like these –" He pointed at Ethan. "Are just waiting for them to invade Hogwarts so they can join their side! Don't listen to _anything_ coming out of his mouth!"

 _Damn it._ Ethan tried so hard to isolate the scapegoat and give the rest the chance to walk away. He didn't expect a serious goddamn fanatic among them. Talking down someone like that would be difficult, if not impossible.

"The Weasleys are traitors! Right now they are selling information to the Muggles for their own safety! We need to show the world that we will not tolerate treason! Forget the Daily Prophet! These Weasleys should be given to the Knights, so they can force the traitors back from London!"

Ethan got his first estimation of just how many students supported the Knights – it was about two-fifths of the school, and that was only those who were currently being vocal about it. The mob was back in full gear, with students of all houses cheering them on in a monstrous din, first-years screaming 'kill all the Muggles'. Ethan looked up at the high-hanging portraits that all the while had been watching this madness; all of them looked down with faces painted in astonished fear.

Ethan tried to engage with the Slytherin. "Well, you seem slightly more intelligent. What's your name?" Ethan's plan was to appeal to his arrogance to get him talking, and eventually find an angle to bring him down as well.

He didn't take the bait. He aimed his wand at Ethan and incanted something he couldn't hear over the noise. Something rammed into Ethan's left shoulder, knocking him to the floor. Ethan looked over his shoulder and it was Lily – she had shoved him out of the way and hit the ground with him. The effect of the Slytherin's hex was reduced by her Barrier, but her whole left arm was covered in boils that continuously grew and popped like the surface of boiling water.

After that was pandemonium. The Slytherin threw another hex at both of them, but it was counterspelled by Scorpius. James returned fire on the Slytherin, and had to leap into the air to dodge six Stunners. Rose channelled a sonic cone on the mob, disorienting them, but was quickly forced to drop it to deflect multiple attacks. James, Lily, Rose and Scorpius started duelling the mob students, each taking on three at once. But they couldn't last long; Scorpius was flung into the wall and Rose was struck in the arm by a stone mallet; James's and Lily's Barriers were about to break any moment –

"He's getting up!"

Upon realizing what was happening, the mob yelled to one another to ready a simultaneous Stunning. But it was too late – after all, he only needed two seconds.

 _Ah, the hero arises,_ thought Ethan. _About bloody time._

Torrian's tail destroyed Rose's illusion magic with raw force, reducing the oaken front doors to splinters. One clawed arm reached out and flattened two mob students – when he raked his arm back, his obsidian claws gashed the stone floor like it was polystyrene foam. All manner of beams and conjured attacks bounced off his armour-like scales. Another sweep of an arm and three more were knocked cold. The morale of the mob evaporated and they pushed into the crowd scurrying for the marble staircase.

Once the Slytherin and his mob was routed and gone, the masses cheered. Everyone cheered, which made Ethan sick. Torrian returned to human form and held his head in one palm, probably still woozy from the Stunners. James, Lily, Rose and Scorpius rushed over to Hugo and handed him his clothes. The crowd was chatting merrily like they'd just watched the greatest blockbuster play ever. Ethan decided he wanted some fresh air, so he got up from the floor and walked out onto the grounds, largely unnoticed.

Ethan travelled down the slope and went around the castle's left. He arrived at the calm, serene shore of Hogwarts Lake. He slowly lowered himself and laid back upon the clean, fresh-smelling grass. The sky was blue, and the only sound was the gentle lapping of water on the lake shore and the occasional whistle of a breeze in his ears. Ethan didn't think he actually heard a breeze before; there was nothing quite like this in New York City. In that particular moment, Ethan wanted nothing more than to rest down here for a few centuries and let the world go sort itself out.

He heard the rustling sound of several people approaching him. "Hey. Um, Ethan, is it?"

Ethan sat up and turned behind him. It was the superstar gang of Hogwarts: Lily, James, Rose, Hugo, Scorpius and Torrian.

"Thanks for your help back there. I'm Lily. Lily Potter,"

Ethan had only observed her from a distance for eleven days, but somehow felt like he had known her for much longer. It felt strange then that this was their first conversation. He was pleased to notice that the hex over her left arm had been dispelled.

"Was that really helping?" James eyed him darkly. "It looked to me like all he did was accuse someone of being gay in front of the whole school. Who are you? You're no ordinary Squib,"

James was immediately distrustful of him. Smart guy. Ethan stood up and faced the group.

"Depends on what you mean by ordinary," There was little use playing it low-key anymore, not now that they had seen his true colours. From now on, he was going to speak however he liked.

"He just entered school at start-of-term," said Scorpius to James. "He attended Muggle school in New York City before coming here,"

The way Scorpius put it, one might get the impression that everyone educated in NYC was like him.

"What do you mean that wasn't helping?" said Lily. "He pretty much destroyed Farley and stalled things long enough for Torrian to get up,"

"Rose's illusion-barrier would have stalled them just as long," rebutted James.

"I don't know about that," muttered Rose. Her arm was healed, but she still looked rather shaken by the incident. When close to half the school chants to hand you and your brother over to terrorists, you don't recover from that quickly. "O'Neill might have been able to dispel it,"

"Torrian woke up from the noise of the duelling anyway,"

"Err, not really," said Torrian. "The force of the Stunners destroyed my organs. I woke up once they healed. I couldn't have gotten up sooner,"

"Yeah, I was kicking him the whole time trying to wake him up," added Lily.

"So that's what it was…"

Rose turned to Ethan. "So you're Ethan, right?"

"Yes," It was odd to experience her speaking to him as well. His first encounter with Lily and Rose under the Invisibility Cloak was quite imprinted in him.

"About Farley…he's not gay, is he," she stated.

Ethan answered plainly. "Not as far as I know – it was just baseless slander on my part. I wouldn't be surprised if he was, though,"

"So you _were_ just spewing lies," said James.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Hugo softly.

Lily whirled on Hugo, incredulous. "What? Hugo, he saved you from getting stripped naked and tossed out the gate!"

"I know, but what about Farley?" He looked to Ethan with a conflicted expression. "You made everyone laugh at him for being gay. There's nothing with being gay,"

"I agree," said Ethan. "But many people don't. And he didn't. He could have deflected my attacks, but he let me run over him,"

"You're still encouraging people to see it as something shameful," Hugo looked away sadly.

Ethan admired the heart Hugo had to have to sympathize with someone who had tormented him for years. Ethan doubted it was something he would be capable of.

"I suppose what I did also qualifies as bullying," he spoke calmly. "I see two prefects and the Head Boy here. Go ahead and give me detention if you want,"

"Maybe we should," said James.

"The hell is wrong with you?" Lily exclaimed at her brother. "Rose, Scorpius – don't tell me you're going to do that?"

Scorpius shook his head. "Technically we're supposed to…but I'd let this one slide. If Ethan hadn't stepped in…we'd all be in a bad state right now,"

Rose addressed Ethan tentatively. "I…I really appreciate the help, and I understand what you were doing. That said…maybe there was a better way to isolate Farley,"

Ethan felt strangely appeased by this answer, impressed even. Even so, he was tired, and didn't feel like spending any more time defending himself to this group.

"…there's always a better way. But I do what I can with what I have. I don't have magic to solve all my problems like you people do. If you'll excuse me, I'm going back to my common room," Ethan walked around them and headed to one of the castle's side entrances. He'd had more than his fill of trouble for one day.

He was at the base of the castle slope when someone called after him.

"Ethan!"

Ethan turned around to see Lily jogging up to him. She caught up to him and offered an apologetic smile, brushing back her flowing hair.

"Hey. Really sorry about James. He's a dick,"

"I'm not bothered. I can relate,"

Lily chuckled. "Hah, you were really ruthless back there. Thanks again," She then turned a little sheepish. "Um, this was all actually sort of my fault – I kind of attacked Farley yesterday and I guess that made him go berserk. None of this would have happened if I hadn't, um, lost my temper,"

"That's not true," refuted Ethan. "What happened back there had little to do with Farley. It was today's news that triggered it, and it was always going to happen eventually. If anything, you helped us all get through it easier by softening up the target,"

"Um, I'm not sure if I did that much," Lily replied modestly, though she immediately seemed more at ease.

"There's something else I have to thank you for. You protected me back there. Twice," For some reason, Ethan found that he was speaking in an awfully formal way.

"Oh, that's nothing," Lily waved it away lightly.

"I also haven't thanked you for Tuesday,"

"Tuesday? Oh, that! Hey, what classes do we take together?"

"Herbology, Potions, Transfig and Muggle Studies,"

"Oh. Well, see you tomorrow then," She smiled at him again. It was an enlivening sight; his earlier weariness was slipping away. From the Great Hall during the Welcoming Feast, to the starlit sky, to the great lake and to the mountains, nothing he had seen in or around Hogwarts was as breathtakingly beautiful.

Ethan cracked a smile back. He was not used to doing one that wasn't evil or condescending, so he hoped it was coming out right.

"Yes. Bye,"


	8. Chapter 8 - Conspiracy

Chapter 8 – Conspiracy

Hermione used to love London. The style, the history, the bustle and diversity – she preferred taking the family out to interesting London restaurants for special occasion dinners. The variety available in just one borough dwarfed that of Diagon Alley or any of the few other wizard shopping districts. She still loved London, but at this time it was not the London she knew.

People were nervous and moved in a hurry, especially from crowded areas where police in full tactical gear patrolled, carrying assault rifles and cold iron rods for magic detection. Hermione knew this only from media footage and looking out her window, as it was too dangerous for Ron and her to venture outside themselves.

They ate their lunch silently at the dining table, having the spaghetti marinara that Ron made. It was very good; Ron and her son Hugo had a flair for cooking that she couldn't match – cooking had many nuances that could only be mastered with trial and intuition. Hermione often found she had neither the time nor the temperament for it; mostly she followed a recipe to the letter and prayed that the laws of probability were in her favour.

"We're out of tomatoes," said Ron. "I'm going to call that agent bloke and order more ingredients. Anything you'd like?"

Hermione shook her head, twirling her fork longer than necessary in her spaghetti. "Nothing in particular,"

"I bet they'll get us lobster if we asked. We should ask for loads of fancy stuff since it's on their tab,"

Hermione reacted sharply. "What if they use that against us in the media, leak it to the Prophet? _'Weasleys enjoy Muggle cuisine while war rages',_ "

Ron's face fell. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't think of that,"

Hermione felt awful and realized too late that he was only trying to cheer her up. "No, I'm sorry. That was stupid. They wouldn't bother doing that. We're already traitors to all wizardkind,"

The telephone rang from the sitting room. "I'll get it," Ron went over and picked it up. After a few moments of listening, he said "Sorry, we're not interested. Good day to you," and returned to the table, leaving the phone unhung.

"Who is that? A newspaper?" asked Hermione.

Ron shook his head and returned to his meal. "Death threat. From the Defenders of Humanity,"

Hermione lost some of her appetite. "What did they say?"

"The usual. Monsters, evil, burn us at the stake,"

"Is that it?"

"That's it," Ron assured her gently. "They didn't mention anyone else. They can't reach any of them anyway. Bill is –"

"Hold on," Hermione glanced at the unhung telephone. If the Defenders hadn't hung up, they still shouldn't be able to hear them properly at the dining table, but she didn't want to take any chances. She pulled out her wand – ten and three-quarter inches, vine, and dragon heartstring – and cast an Imperturbable barrier around the table. She then cast another spell to detect any electronic devices within the enclosed area. She was specifically scanning for any listening devices that may have planted in the suite since the last time she checked, which was this morning.

"Well," Ron continued. "Bill and his family are hidden in Egypt – I don't think Doh's got a lot of members there. Charlie's held by the Romanians, Percy and my parents are safe with Ministry security –"

"What about George's family? The Defenders could have members in the military," said Hermione worriedly. Ron's fourth older brother George and his family have been held in the British-controlled internment camp in Enfield since they were captured at Ottery St Catchpole.

"Yeah, well," Ron paused. "We would have heard about it by now if they tried something on George. And I'm sure George can look out for his family, even without his wand," Despite everything he knew about Muggles, Ron still tended to underestimate them due to his pure-blood upbringing.

"You called your parents recently?" asked Ron.

"Yes; they're fine. I've told them to go to the police if they meet any harassment, but they insist they won't need it,"

"See? Nothing to worry about, everyone's fine," said Ron. "Rose and Hugo are safe at Hogwarts. No Muggles are going to reach them there,"

"Ohhh," Hermione drew a long sigh. "They must be suffering so much because of us. I'm just terrified someone will use them to get to us,"

Ron mirrored her worried expression. "You want us to send them another message through Harry?"

Her immediate desire was 'yes', but on second thought – "No; we don't have anything new to tell them, and I don't want to trouble Harry. He has…a lot on his plate,"

Sometimes she wondered if her long-time friend Harry was cursed by fate; all his life, he suffered so much loss of those he loved, and he only courted more loss by becoming an Auror. Now a prophecy hung over his head, threatening to take two of his family after already taking one. She could not begin to comprehend the level of pain and stress he must feel, and how he could cope while holding it inside. This was why she had to end this war peacefully. They had a better chance of breaking the prophecy this way. They all had a better chance of survival this way.

After lunch Hermione opened her laptop at the table to update the latest Order of the Phoenix website. Twice already she had hired a web development firm to build her a website for all those who wish to support peace and cooperation between Muggles and wizards, but within weeks her websites were completed infiltrated and compromised. The best she could do was rely on traditional media to reach the world, and social media sites with the resources to resist attacks from hackers.

While Hermione worked on a longer response to the surrender of the Irish Ministry of Magic, Ron ordered more groceries on the phone. When they first arrived at London, they simply ordered room service, but Ron soon became restless from having so little to do, so Hermione made the request for their hosts (and observers) to bring them ingredients. Hermione heard Ron order for more pasta, almonds, and Moroccan mint tea – all of her favourite foods.

At mid-evening the doorbell rang. "That must be our groceries," Ron went over and looked through the door's peephole before opening it with a curious frown. "You're not our usual guy,"

Standing at the door was a tall, fit gentleman, possibly in his forties, with close-trimmed black hair and black-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a typically ominous black suit and a wired earpiece, but that presence was diminished somewhat by the bags laden with groceries he held in each hand.

"I am not. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Weasley. My name is John Blake. I am the Chief of the Magic Security and Intelligence Service, also known as MI7,"

Hermione shot out of her chair and shut her laptop. She looked down at her nightgown; she was in no attire to greet dignitaries, but she couldn't run away when they had already spotted each other. She went to the doorway as composedly as possible and extended a hand. "Mr. Blake. I am Hermione Weasley. It is an honour to finally meet you,"

The man gave a genteel chuckle. "No, Mrs. Weasley, the honour is mine," He transferred the groceries on his right to his left and shook her hand. It was a soft grip, but his hand was rough and callused like a nail file.

"Please forgive me for arriving without notice,"

"No, it's no trouble at all. Thank you so much for um, bringing our groceries," That was not a line she was used to giving government officials.

"It was my pleasure. A fine and healthy taste you have. I have to say that I am quite partial to Moroccan mint tea myself,"

"Well, why don't you come in and join us in a cup?"

"Thank you,"

Ron took the groceries from the man and Hermione led him to the sitting room couches as they waited for the tea. Every aspect of his manner, from his bearing, to his stride, to the way he sat down, was refined and reserved like a butler, an epitome of British decorum. Yet there was a subtle strength behind his politeness that made it hard to doubt his position.

"You think that perhaps I am an imposter?" Blake raised cordially. "I would not blame you for thinking so. Regrettably, I have no convincing means of proving my identity. You may take everything I say with the consideration that I may be deceiving you. A principle, really, in our lines of work,"

When Hermione first rose to Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, one of the first things she learnt was that Muggles were far more informed about magic than most of the magical community would expect.

In 1689, due to brutal persecution of wizards and all magickind, the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was drafted by the International Confederation of Wizards; it stipulated that all magickind governing bodies were responsible for maintaining the secrecy of the existence of wizards and all magical beings. But Muggle leaders did not fully forget the existence of magic, and wizard leaders did not fully sever relations with them. The Ministry's nationalized artefact companies supplied top Muggle agencies with protective artefacts, while the Muggle government facilitated them in the supply of food, commodities and intelligence, and helped to maintain secrecy of magic from the majority of Mugglekind. MI7 was their liaison with the British government.

The Ministry's relationship with MI7 was a divisive issue even within party lines. Many felt that the Ministry fed too much information about wizardkind to the Muggles and should reduce their contact to as little as possible. During Cornelius Fudge's administration, the Ministry dialled back its relations with the Muggle British government to the Prime Minister as their single point of contact.

The magic community felt safer believing that Muggles were fully oblivious to their existence, just as Muggles felt safer being oblivious to the same. Any formalized relations would slip them towards revelation, and revelation would inevitably lead to war. That was the political doctrine that had guided the Ministry since the Statute, and in part, Hermione subscribed to it like everyone else. Whether their philosophy was right or wrong, it hardly mattered now.

"We could simply call your office to confirm you are here," said Hermione.

"Actually, no one save the three of us is currently aware that I am here. I'd like to ask for your utmost confidence that this meeting isn't taking place,"

"Certainly, Mr. Blake,"

This was certainly a meeting like none she'd had yet. The man was confident enough to speak to them alone; Ron and her had to surrender their wands to leave the suite, and many Muggles were terrified to speak to them without a team of MI7 bodyguards on watch. He was also possibly the man behind the decision to allow Ron and her to use their wands within their suite. Their wands were the only thing that kept them as guests instead of captives. Still, Hermione did detect cold iron within the walls to keep a watch over their magic use. And their suite was covered in an Anti-Apparition Field, projected from a hidden generator likely built by goblins.

Ron brought their tea set and poured them all a cup; Hermione was briefly annoyed that Ron handed Hermione a cup first, but Blake did not seem to mind.

"Thank you, Mr. Weasley," he said, and he took a sip with no visible regard to any danger it could have possessed. Sitting across from them, Blake rested his cup on the coffee table and began.

"This war, in the U.K. at least, began largely due to evidence pointing to a conspiracy – a conspiracy of Ministry of Magic officials using a combination of brainwashing and mental domination to influence British policy. Part of a wider strategy of several wizarding governments to incite a world war,"

"The influence of those radical supremacists varies by country," started Ron. "We don't have –"

"Ron, let him finish," said Hermione.

"Little more than a year ago, before the revelation of magickind, tensions between the West and its rivals were at their worst in history. Manipulation of key political figures could have eventually led to another world war – a nuclear war, which would severely cripple all of humanity, making us more susceptible to conquest by wizardkind,"

"For months prior to the Revelation on July 9th last year, my agency as well as our allied counterparts began to uncover more compromised political leaders across various countries. A month before the Revelation, my agency also independently intercepted letters between magic government officials, bearing the Blood Sigil of the senders,"

A Blood Sigil was a magical signature made created with a wizard's own blood – a wizard had to invent his own version of the Blood Sigil Spell to cast a signature, and that spell would be un-castable by anyone else.

"Blood Sigils?" said Ron. "This is the first we've heard of that,"

"That's right," added Hermione. "When MI7 informed the Ministry of the letters, they didn't inform us that the letters were signed with Blood Sigils,"

The man's impeccable composure fractured for a moment; his eyes widened in realization.

"Is that so?" Blake paused deeply in thought. "I see…this…may be a terrible oversight. Either my own men failed to pass that critical information, or your people from the Muggle Liaison Office failed to pass it,"

"Wait, what does that mean?" asked Ron warily.

Hermione realized the implications, but did not want to believe it until she had heard more. "You had someone who could authenticate the Blood Sigils?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Blake. "I have…associates. All letters were legitimately signed by the individual who wrote them, and we have positively identified their handwriting in cross-examination with other materials. The letters my agents interpreted from your Ministry came from three of your Ministry's officials – they are Balthazar Cadogan, Aminta Fane, and Harry Potter,"

Hermione knew of this already, and like the Ministry, believed that the letters had to be faked. But after learning that they were signed with Blood Sigils…

"Obviously fake," Ron said defensively. "Harry, Cadogan, even Fane – they're not supremacists. Surely you know that,"

"Would they be above dominating the British government to _prevent_ a nuclear war?" said Blake. "Because that was the general content of their letters," He pulled out a sheet of parchment from under his suit and handed it to Hermione.

Hermione unfolded the letter: at the end of it she recognized, in glowing red lines, Harry's Blood-Sigil. Like many modern wizards, he crafted his Sigil in the form of a simple signature. Her eyes rose up to the name of the recipient: the Supreme Mugwump of the Confederation, Matias Orión Álvarez. The content of the letter was genuinely Harry's as far as she could tell – not just from the handwriting, but from its short and straightforward tone.

 _Supreme Mugwump,_

 _If you're going to throw the Muggle world into nuclear war, the United Kingdom will have no part of it. Only the British Prime Minister can authorize the use of nuclear weapons, and he is firmly in our control and protection. You are under violation of the Confederation's own treaties for conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity. If I find you, I will arrest you._

 _Harry Potter_

Hermione took her wand and hovered it over Harry's Sigil – its red glow briefly flashed green from her Blood Sigil Authentication Spell, indicating that it was real. Hermione thought for a moment that Harry might have been tricked – made to sign a letter of different contents, only for someone to alter it later. She sniffed at the body of the letter and recognized a unique glue-like odour – Super-Permanent Ink, magically unalterable. Harry truly did write this…or he was forced to.

After Ron had a look at the letter as well, Blake extended his hand and Ron returned the letter to him, dumbfounded.

"Your administration could have brought the matter to our attention, but instead you kept the supremacists' agenda a secret and chose to dominate us. So from our current perspective, your Ministry is still a threat to our national interest that we must rectify. This letter and similar others indicated that our Prime Minister and several other key members of the governments were either brainwashed or under the Imperius Curse. Our last Prime Minister refused to believe that his mind had been compromised. Until he held a live public address and killed himself at the end of it,"

The Prime Minister's death proved that the conspiracy was real. He was not the only example; three of his aides committed suicide shortly after being identified or apprehended. And they were just four individuals in a cascade of death that horrified the world – dozens of Muggles from other countries, from world leaders to government employees, killing themselves in frenzied fits for control of their own mind – the cry for war was instant and unanimous.

"Still, I don't believe it either," said Hermione, speaking about the letters. "Harry – I mean, Mr. Potter can't have been involved in that. He would have…" She wanted to say 'would have told them', but she wasn't sure any more. The Ministry had changed both her and Harry – they both had to learn discretion in order to survive. They went in believing they could change the Ministry – that was a long time ago.

Blake reached for his teacup and took a restful sip. "In politics, often the simplest answer is the correct one. I knew that wizard supremacists were infiltrating magic governments across Europe. I had no reason to doubt the evidence brought to me by my agents. Until recently," His face turned hard as he set the cup down; the disarming politeness he exuded turned into chilling severity.

"I found that one of my men, who led the interception of the letters, was surreptitiously raising his spending habits towards the lavish. I was unable to trace the source of new funds he had acquired from a foreign account. He didn't know where the money came from either, and I examined his memories thoroughly with Legilimency artefacts,"

"Did – did you scan him for Memory Charms?" Hermione stammered.

"Yes, and there were none. He and his team recall seizing the letters. Their memories show contradictions and ambiguities that might suggest fabrication, but it is not reliable evidence, especially so long after the occurrence. They may have been affected by the Brainwash Spell, which leaves a permanent physical alteration of the brain, rather than a lift-able, detectable enchantment. It is extremely advanced mental magic,"

Hermione knew this; because the spell was so advanced and its effects permanent, a single mistake was prone to causing irreversible mental damage to its victims. For that reason, it was classified as illegal dark magic.

"If their memories were altered, it must be by one or more individuals very adept at mental magic, to have crafted convincing false memories with no mental damage. Typically, only two types of professionals possess such skill: seasoned Obliviators, and experienced criminal memory fixers,"

Obliviators were the Ministry's foremost experts in mental magic; their main business was to erase or alter the memories of Muggles to maintain the secrecy of magic. It dawned on Hermione what Blake was suggesting.

"You think Ministry Obliviators brainwashed your agents and planted those letters – you think they dominated Cadogan, Fane, and Harry to create those letters, and wiped their memories of it," Her voice quivered faintly, and she fought to control it.

"Perhaps. At this point, this is only conjecture – my agent may have received his money as a payment for any other form of corruption, and opted to have his memory of it erased to protect himself. If this conspiracy of a conspiracy is real, we must investigate your Ministry's Obliviators. But I cannot reach them from here,"

"Which brings me to why I am here. I need someone from within the Ministry to investigate your Obliviators, as well as the Muggle Liaison Office. Someone that can be trusted. You would no longer be welcome at the Ministry, Mrs. Weasley, and it's possible you will not be able to return to London should you set foot back in wizard territory. Which is why I need your recommendation,"

All of this was…staggering. Nothing she had ever faced compared to this – the stakes, the danger, but most of all, the uncertainty of who and what to believe. She could only think of one person she could trust to see the task through.

"Harry. We need to tell Harry," said Hermione softly.

"Harry Potter is a potential conspirator," said Blake.

"No he's not," defended Ron. "He's the only one in the Ministry who'll listen to what we say. He's the only one who can snoop around the Ministry and corner Obliviators without drawing attention. He's the best chance we got,"

John Blake removed his glasses and tucked them into his front pocket. His motionless blue eyes focused sharply on Hermione and seemed to assess all the content of her soul. "Do you trust Mr. Potter?"

Hermione stared back at him with courage she had learnt from Harry. "With my life,"

"No, Mrs. Weasley. With the lives of all humanity and wizardkind," said Blake.

"Eh," Ron shrugged. "He's handled it before,"

Hermione nodded. "Yes,"

Blake regarded her a moment longer, then reached into a pocket. He pulled out a simple black flash drive. "This contains comprehensive personal information about the MI7 agents who seized the Ministry letters. It also contains where and when they intercepted the owls," He extended the drive to Hermione and she took it tentatively in both hands.

"If your trust is misguided, then I have just sold out my men. For your sake, and that of all wizardkind, they had better not come to harm,"

Hermione nodded again. "I understand," But there was more she needed to ask. "But what will happen once Harry uncovers who has framed the Ministry?"

" _If_ he uncovers it," corrected Blake. " _And_ it isn't the Ministry,"

"Yes. But that will prove that the Ministry has _not_ been manipulating the British government, and that we are not a threat to it. If we can find proof, will that convince the government to accept a truce?"

Blake's steely demeanour softened. "It is critical if we are to have peace. But it alone will not be enough. The British public supports the unconditional surrender of all wizards because they view you as an existential threat. Once our government is convinced, you will still have to convince our people,"

This conversation had taken an incredible toll on Hermione, and she could no longer hold herself coolly. She sighed. "I have been trying. But the media will not give us a fair chance. The interviews are so loaded, I am just bombarded –"

"If you can prove to our administration the innocence of the Ministry, I can arrange for the media to give you a fairer chance," said Blake. "I can also assist you against the cyberattacks and threats the Order of the Phoenix suffers from hired hackers of the Defenders of Humanity,"

What had seemed like an impossible task now showed a glimmer of possibility. Just a little, Hermione felt more room in her lungs to breathe. "Thank you, Mr. Blake. Thank you for trusting us with this,"

Blake drank the rest of his cold tea in one motion and stood up. "Thank you for fighting the real war in this country. And the world. I wish I could help more, but my past connections with wizardkind make my position tenuous, and I would be no help at all if replaced,"

"I understand," Hermione accompanied the chief to the door and saw him through. "Good night to you, Mr. Blake,"

Ron raised a sudden question. "What did you mean by past connections with wizards?"

John Blake turned around and regarded them both. "You knew Albus Dumbledore?"

After all the heavy information she had received tonight, this one nearly knocked her over. "Y-Yes," she said blankly. "You knew Dumbledore?"

The chief of MI7 showed them a wistful smile. "He was a friend," And with that, the man took his leave down the hallway.

* * *

In the dead of night, Harry searched the shelves of the office of Selma Granville, the Head Obliviator. He scanned over rows of record books and document scrolls, with the Invisibility Cloak clasped over his shoulders, which rendered him not just invisible, but undetectable by any magical means.

Shortly after reuniting the Deathly Hallows, he discovered that his Cloak had become more powerful. It could extend its invisibility to anything it touched, and he gained the ability to vary its magic resistance up to that of a mithril cloak. The Unspeakables of the Ministry told Harry that such an enchantment was extraordinarily complex and lost to time, mark of a skilled ancient craftsman. Harry knew that his Cloak was passed down from his father's family for generations, but beyond that did not know its origins for certain.

With his Invisibility Cloak, he could bypass any Ministry detection, save for barrier-type sensors that tripped upon crossing them. Which was one of many spells that prevented him from safely returning Ethan to Muggle territory. An illegal Floo smuggling route could get them there undetected, but according to one of his informants from the Cabal, the next available smuggling cart had a three-month-long waiting list. Every day the boy stayed at Hogwarts he stood a greater chance of being discovered; Harry hoped to find another way to smuggle him quickly, in between commanding his Aurors, attending Cabinet meetings, and getting to the bottom of this conspiracy Hermione had handed him.

Harry identified the shelf containing the Obliviators' shift logs. He pulled out a log book and flipped to the pages detailing the shift and operation records of all Obliviators on the days that MI7 agents 'intercepted' the letters. He took out a non-magical film camera and took photos of the relevant pages. He returned the log book to its shelf and exited the office; he would have cast a few spells to remove trace evidence of himself from the room, but that would have triggered its detection spells.

Back in his own office, Harry developed the photos he took – it took only a couple of minutes with a magical developing solution. With a projector, he examined the information he had duplicated: he noted down the names of all Obliviators that weren't on assignment during the specific days MI7 captured the letters. It was possible that the agents had their memories altered on a day _after_ handing over the letters. However, according to John Blake's files, the agents had their memories scanned briefly just after reporting back with the letters, a standard procedure to check for mental alteration. They had not found the agents' memories peculiar then, but it did make Harry's job a lot easier, as the agents must have had their memories altered on the specific date they acquired the letters.

The list of suspects was too long for Harry to question on his own, so he had to narrow it down. Harry travelled to a door in a remote corner of the Ministry building and used a key that only Lowther, Keppel and he possessed. He entered a tall, stony room and beheld one of the most powerful devices in the Ministry's possession: the Oculus Array.

A row of wooden countertops lined along three walls. Nearly every inch of their surface was covered in a fiddly arrangement of tiny brass buttons, levers, knobs and gauges, their needles fluttering over scales of esoteric quantities. Floating perfectly still above these control panels were large circular mirrors in bronze frames, a few of them hanging over the middle of the room. On four corners of the room stood tall cylindrical boilers made of brass and bronze, within them boiling various mixtures of potions. Pipes thick and thin and of brass and bronze connected between the boilers and panels, between panels and between boilers, and stretched in a sprawling web into the ceiling. The pale yellow light of flaming sconces sharpened the polished majesty of just one unit of the mighty Oculus Array.

In the centre of the room was a circular wooden counter, nothing adorning it. Locking the door behind him, Harry stepped before the central counter.

"Oculus, I'd like to see all uses of the Apparition Spell on June 13th 2021," Harry spoke to the counter.

An enormous sheet of parchment materialized upon it, large enough to serve as a family picnic blanket. It was a map drawn in coloured ink, showing the entirety of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It showed roads and forests, wizard and Muggle settlements, the house-elves' hidden hollows, the veela's veiled kingdoms and entrances to the goblins' underground tunnel network. The map was alive with innumerable blinking dots, blue for Apparitions and red for Disapparitions. They mostly appeared around small districts within a Muggle town or village – this record was from before the war, when wizards still lived in communities within a Muggle settlement.

"Highlight homes of registered Obliviators,"

A sparse number of homes across Britain were highlighted in yellow. Harry swiped a finger on the parchment, and the map scrolled down so a highlighted home was at the edge of the parchment and close to Harry. He pressed two fingers on the map and dragged them outward; the map enlarged, zooming in on the Obliviator's home. The outline of the cottage was detailed, but the inside was blank, only filled with yellow; it was standard building regulation for all wizarding homes to be enchanted against the Oculus Array's Scrying Element.

"Show wizard presences,"

Black dots began wandering about the map, along the streets of wizarding districts, but not within homes or shops. The Oculus could not collect any sensory information within Anti-Scrying-enchanted walls, but it could detect uses of monitored spells. Blue and red dots still appeared in and outside of buildings.

"Pause and rewind to 5 am,"

The black dots speedily reversed their paths and the blue and red dots re-blinked at previous locations. Harry held a finger to the parchment and dragged it slowly to control the playback. He tapped the first red dot that appeared within the Obliviator's home – the entire map vanished and redrew itself, now showing the layout of the Ministry of Magic complex. The blue dot corresponding to the red dot he tapped appeared in the Ministry's Atrium, and a black dot travelled from it to the Obliviator Headquarters on the third floor.

Harry followed the dot of this Obliviator through the course of the day – he remained in the Ministry all day on standby. Harry picked another Obliviator's home from his suspect list and repeated the whole process of tracing their movements. After several minutes of straining his eyes over tiny dots, he found one Obliviator who used his break time to Apparate into a Muggle café in Bristol.

"Show Muggle presences,"

The café bloomed with countless black dots. Yet none sat with the Obliviator; he was apparently eating alone. Harry pulled a sheet of paper from his robes, printed with the addresses of the MI7 agents who intercepted the letters. He recited the first address on the list; the Oculus Map shifted to an apartment in Manchester. The agent's black dot, as well as that of all occupants, was visible within the un-enchanted building.

Harry tapped the agent's dot. "Pin this dot as 'Addison',"

The agent's name appeared in tiny script under the dot. Unlike the Marauder's Map, the Oculus could not on its own identify the names of the presences it detected, though it wasn't for a lack of trying. The Ministry simply didn't have access to the level of magical energy required to maintain such advanced divining magic on a nationwide scale.

Harry followed Addison's dot, but it vanished without a trace upon exiting its apartment. Harry tracked all the other MI7 agents on the list – they too vanished suddenly in the afternoon from their homes, from military bases, and wherever else they were. As this John Blake had written in his intelligence, the agents must have employed mithril cloaks to deflect the Oculus's detection magic as they 'carried out' their mission. There could have been an MI7 agent sitting with the Obliviator at the café, the agent likely also wearing an Invisibility Cloak to not draw attention.

"Show all uses of the Brainwash Spell,"

Nothing on the map changed. Of course, if any wizard were to cast any monitored dark magic, the Oculus would alert the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and a team of police would have shortly Apparated at that location. If any Obliviator cast an illegal spell, they would have had to conceal both their wand and their target under a mithril cloak.

"Show all areas scryed on June 13th 2021,"

The map zoomed out to show all of the U.K. and great circular patches, from two to thirty miles in diameter, spotted the land in pale blue. Several mirrors that hovered around Harry drifted before him, and through them he saw high aerial footage of the regions highlighted on the map. Before the war, the Ministry mainly utilized the Oculus's Scrying Element to search for criminal wizards; as such, the scrying eyes mostly covered small villages, forests and mountains. Right now, the scrying eyes were focused on military bases and Muggle cities.

Harry spent about two hours tracking the movements of more Obliviators on more days when the letters were seized. Some movements were more suspicious than others, but still he found nothing solid. He crossed out the names of several Obliviators with solid alibis and narrowed his list a little more.

Harry left the Central Console Chamber the way he found it and headed for the lift lobby. Down the corridor, he came to face with Lowther scribbling an interdepartmental memo on a sheet of purple paper, his steel quill in hand.

"Potter," he greeted. His brows raised curiously above his glasses. "What brings you to my department?"

Harry already had his answer prepared in case he ran into someone. "I wanted to ask Taboo Surveillance to search for some phrases the Knights might use, but they weren't in,"

"Just leave them a memo and they'll get back to you," said Lowther. "But you know how it is: they usually only speak under a shielded house, and unless it's a very rare phrase or code word, your guys will just wind up chasing a lot of false leads,"

"Right," Harry made a move to pass Lowther, but he paused him with a raised palm.

"Wait," Lowther twirled his steel quill around his fingers. His expression softened into something pensive. "You remember the hacker you brought in? The American boy?"

"Yes?"

"He's dead," said Lowther, staring into the point of his quill. "Killed himself with this quill,"

Harry showed stunned surprise. "When was this?"

"Oh, two weeks ago, the night you last saw him," said Lowther. "Been trying to off himself for months and finally succeeded. Kind of a shame. The Muggles' Home Office finally discovered the access we had to their email servers. Only had that because of the boy. He was the only hacker we had with real experience breaking into top-security systems,"

Harry recognized an opportunity. "What else did he do?"

"Well, he helped to fabricate personal records for my agents in Westminster, positioned them as close to the government as possible without being discovered," said Lowther rather wistfully. "Even pretended to be a former employer on the phone – impressive actor, he was. But other than all that, he didn't do anything else,"

A purple paper airplane flew down the corridor from behind Lowther and hovered before him. Lowther unfolded the memo and read it.

"Well, I have to be going. See you, Potter,"

Nodding to each other, they went their separate ways down the corridor. Harry took a few paces, stopped and waited for Lowther's footsteps to recede. He then drew his wand and cast an Imperturbable Barrier in a small area around him.

"You're too close, Teddy," With a swipe of his wand, Harry pulled an invisibility cloak out of thin air and into his grasp. Hidden under that cloak was a young man with a tall shock of light brown hair over a boyish face.

His godson Edward Lupin smiled sheepishly. "How did you know I was here?"

Harry smothered the boy's smile with a stern look. "You were moving too much. I saw you," Harry tossed back Teddy's cloak. His was plain black and not as effective as Harry's Cloak – Harry had caught a faint shift of colour behind Lowther whilst they were talking. "Either cast _Impedimenta_ on yourself or learn to stay still,"

"Yes, sir," said Teddy obediently.

"What are you doing here?"

Teddy looked back confusedly. "Following Mr. Lowther. You told me to follow him whenever possible,"

"There's no need to follow him inside the Ministry. He wouldn't hide his contract here,"

"Right, right," Teddy mumbled, looking uneasy. "Um, sir, are you sure you want me for this? I mean, shouldn't someone more experienced handle this?"

"You're more than capable of handling this," said Harry, softening his tone slightly. In truth, Teddy was the only Auror Harry could trust with this task. It was not that he had no loyalty from his other Aurors, but only Teddy had enough time on his hands to shadow Lowther without his disappearance being noticed.

"Just follow him after hours and watch his movements on your Oculus Map," Teddy's standard-issue version had Lowther's dot pinned with his name. "Where has he been this week?"

"Uh, same as last week," reported Teddy. "Just his home and some stores downtown. He seems less on edge now,"

"All right. Carry on, Teddy,"

Naturally, Lowther and some of his Spooks would have been very perturbed last week. Because they would have gone for a regular enchantment screening and realized they were affected by a Memory Charm. Without resorting to dangerous methods, only the original caster could lift a Memory Charm, so they must have spent the last week sorting through all available evidence and unreliable memories trying to identify who had compromised them. Lowther seemed rather calm when he chatted with Harry, so it was possible he had not found the culprit yet, but as always, Harry would be keeping his guard up around him.

Eventually, Lowther will have to visit his magical contract to recharge its magical energy. Once he did, Harry will be able to destroy it and learn what secrets Lowther was hiding. It was all the more important now after learning of this possible subversion from the Obliviators.

He only hoped Teddy was up to the task, and the dangers it may hold. "Remember that Lowther is a Spook – he has a lot more experience shadowing people than you do. Keep your distance and don't enter any building after him," Harry gave him a short pat on the shoulder.

Teddy nodded, his Auror's hardened strength showing through. "I won't let you down, sir,"

Harry left Teddy behind and continued his own investigation; he still had one more lead to pursue. If the Obliviators truly did dominate, Fane, Cadogan and him, the latter two would have been quite risky to ambush with just mithril cloaks to circumvent detection; they likely would have decided to lure them into a blind zone – an area unobserved by the Oculus, either out of range or fully encapsulated by a magic-resistant material. The latter was not an easy thing to set up without notice, but there was one blind zone accessible to all Obliviators and Ministry cabinet officials – the Ministry dungeons and the portrait hallway that led to it.

Harry reached the portrait of the witch being burned at the stake and made his way into the dungeons. The Ministry dungeons were wholly invisible to the Oculus Array as it was encased in adamantine – extremely heavy, but nigh indestructible and almost impenetrably magic-resistant.

Harry recalled all the times he had entered the dungeons in the year before. He tried to identify signs of alteration, such as blank periods and inconsistencies, but there were already plenty of them from being so long ago. However, if his memories have been altered, it was more likely there was a visit to the dungeons he couldn't remember at all. So he would have to check the dungeons' security records.

Harry winded through some stony passages before facing the security control room. Its walls and door were several inches of adamantine, impossible for him to break in with magic. So he knocked on the door.

From within the control room, a guard must have recognized him through the security feed. A guard opened the door. "Mr. Potter, what is –"

Harry threw his Invisibility Cloak over the guard's head before blasting him back with a Stunner. Right afterwards, he threw a perfectly non-magical flashbang grenade into the room. The other three guards never managed to grasp their situation before Harry rushed up to each one and Stunned them under the Cloak. The hallway outside was silent, which meant that no alarm was triggered from detection of magic within the control room. Harry closed the adamantine door and peered over the room's controls.

Like the Oculus Central Console, the control room's consoles were wooden with many brass buttons and knobs. Mirrors hung upon the walls displayed a live feed of the dungeon hallways. Harry turned a few knobs and a sheet of parchment materialized atop the console.

"Show me all visits by 'Harry Potter',"

A map of the dungeons appeared upon the parchment, this one with names under every black dot. The mirror before him switched to playing footage of Harry's last visit – besides the one two weeks ago – which was about three months before. Harry recognized himself passing by the entrance to the dungeons with a manacled Knight of Walpurgis before him. He deposited the man in a cell and promptly exited – there didn't seem much room to have been ambushed by Obliviators.

Beside the layout of the map was a list of dates – dates where he was detected to have visited the dungeons. Harry scrolled down the list and found one date that he didn't remember – June 6th, 2021. Tapping that date, he watched himself in the security footage and his black dot on the map, heading past the entrance, past several cell blocks, and into a hallway of old, disused torture chambers. These chambers were total blind zones even to the control room's security system – Harry's dot vanished as he entered one of the chambers. He did not emerge until twenty minutes later – Harry zoomed in on himself exiting the chamber and recognized the dazed look of one affected by the Confundus Charm.

Harry applied the Confundus Charm on the unconscious guards and positioned them back in their seats – when they awoke they would return to their duties like nothing had happened. He made his way to the torture chamber he didn't remember himself entering.

The chamber was lit with a single musty lantern, revealing walls, floor and ceiling made of dull, near-black metal – adamantine. The moment he opened the thick metal door, the steely smell of dried blood hit his nose, along with other bodily smells he was all too used to in his work. There was a wooden chair in the centre, with cold iron shackles on the armrests and front legs and a metal, semi-spherical cap hanging like a lamp over the backrest: an electric chair, but powered by magic. Connected to one wall were a set of chains, and by another sat a torture rack. On a corner sat some tables and shelves holding implements of advanced interrogation – cold iron spikes, bottles of expired truth serums, and a tightly sealed jar holding a sack made of Dementor's cloth.

Harry would never have any reason to come here unless lured in with a memo or summons. First, he needed to learn what happened here. From a pouch on his potion belt he pulled out a Revealens; a large magnifying glass with a brass frame, covered all around with various knobs and dials. Holding the glass over his left eye, Harry slowly swept his gaze over the room through the seven-inch wide lens, turning a few of the knobs around the frame. The Revealens could detect and identify minute traces of magic – they were highlighted as faint glittering clouds hanging in the air.

Much of the trace magic in the room had decayed over time, but enough was preserved through the lack of magical activity. There was a wispy trail of yellow dust along the floor, leading from the door to the electric chair. The incantation of the detected spell appeared as neat text at the bottom of the lens: _Imperio. Estimated age: 15 months._ Several feet to the right of the electric chair was a tiny cloud of red; Harry went over, knelt over the spot and identified a trace of _Stupefy_ , with the same estimated age _._ In front and slightly to the chair was a speck of light blue energy: _Fulgetrium,_ same age _._

Harry returned the Revealens to his belt. The lack of magical traces in the air suggested that someone attempted to scrub the room with a Dispel Spell, but failed to recognize that the adamantine floor would deflect some of it, leaving some trace behind. It was clear that a domination and a short fight happened in this room, but more evidence will be needed for Harry to find the perpetrators.

" _Sanguis Revelio,"_

The tip of the Elder Wand lit with a deep violet light, and the torture chamber lit up like a disco dance floor. Swathes and pools of blood glowed light blue upon the walls and floor, non-visible traces that remained when most of the blood was mopped up by cleaning spells. The blood glowed brightest for the most recent stains, dimmest for the oldest. Harry's gaze promptly fell upon the two brightest stains in the room, which glowed like bulbs against the dim swathes that painted the rest of the room.

The first was a few drops of blood on the floor, three in a line from in front of the electric chair. A vertical, low-velocity spatter: dripping blood from a small wound. Harry withdrew a test tube from his potion belt, then he drew his wand over his thumb to cut it open. A few drops of blood trickled into the tube, and the solution within turned from milky white to a clear light red. He tapped the tip of his wand on the blood stain and dipped it into the tube; the potion within bubbled and foamed, a reaction that meant the blood was a match. More evidence that he was indeed here.

The perpetrators used their own mithril and invisibility cloaks to enter the chamber undetected by the security system. They never would have been able to ambush Harry if they weren't waiting in a blind zone – his Foe-Watch would have heated up and alerted him to danger as he neared the chamber door. After dominating him, they ordered him to write the conspiracy letters. Signing a Blood Sigil required blood, so perhaps this blood stain occurred then. Yet the line of droplets suggested he was moving.

The line of droplets pointed to the second blood stain of interest, found several feet to the right of the chair, where he had found traces of _Stupefy_. It was a much larger splatter, possibly from a stab wound with a couple tracks made by shifting bodies indicating a struggle on the ground. Harry tested this blood sample, and the Blood Match Potion stood still – no match.

This was what he needed – the adamantine floor also made it impossible for the perpetrators to thoroughly scrub the blood evidence with magic. Now what Harry needed to do what test this blood against covertly acquired DNA samples of his shortened list of Obliviators. He would also need to look for evidence that Cadogan and Fane were compromised as well. The situation was not looking brighter for Harry – it rarely ever did – but they were looking clearer now.

Harry had heard many horror stories of Obliviators, Spooks and other Ministry operatives who fell victim to mind control and brainwashing. As Head Auror, he knew he was a prime target, but the anxiety was little different from the fear of death he experienced as a student hunted by Voldemort. Now that he learnt his mind was compromised, he found himself quite numb to any feelings of shock or horror. His years of work as an Auror had taught him how to view horrible things from a clinical perspective. Or perhaps his lack of feeling was the work of brainwashing – emotion, personality, deeply held beliefs – nothing was sacred to advanced mental magic.

Nothing was sacred in the world Harry lived in, but he didn't need such protection. Just as his foes will go to any means to achieve their ends, so will Harry go to any means to protect those he loved. And if people from outside his world decided he should burn for his crimes, then so be it. Because he was not a hero, never was. He was only a man.


	9. Chapter 9 - The Loveless

Chapter 9 – The Loveless

 _Well, so much for keeping a low profile._

Wherever Ethan went, students pointed a finger or thumb at him and whispered to each other. He was referred to as 'that Squib', like he was the only one at Hogwarts. However, no one approached him or paid him any more attention than that.

"I can't believe they're only suspended for four days," grumbled Varun for the hundredth time in four days, stabbing into his chicken pie.

"Farley's under review for expulsion though," said Timothy. "After what happened, McGonagall _has_ to make it go through,"

"McGonagall's not in charge anymore," Varun glowered at the High Table. "It's now the 'High Inquisitor',"

The reason for the staff's mysterious disappearance during last Sunday's spectacular showdown was that they had all been called to the Ministry's Department of Education to vote one of their number into the new position of 'High Inquisitor'. The creation of such a role was, not very subtly, meant to grant the Board of Governors more control over the school. In the likely event that Headmistress McGonagall is relieved from duty, it was now the High Inquisitor that will succeed her, not the current Deputy Headmaster Professor Slughorn. The staff was allowed to vote on who should take this role, but only from the two professors pre-selected by the Board: Herbert Crawford and Wayne Scrooby. Somehow the staff thought Crawford to be the lesser of two evils.

Staff at the High Table had no fixed seats; they were expected to take a seat next to their colleagues, filling the chairs from middle to the ends. Only the Headmistress had a fixed seat in the middle, though her high-backed golden chair was currently unoccupied. The left side of the High Table currently had less staff than the right, due to Crawford and Scrooby sitting on the end of the left. The other staff that arrived for lunch would all coincidentally approach the High Table from the right and never cast a glance at the left of the table. Ethan found it rather amusing.

"Wish McGonagall had gotten them a longer suspension," grumbled Varun.

Suspension in Hogwarts consisted of spending near the entire day in the Detention Chamber, doing assignments and writing reams of essays on what they did wrong and what positive goals they will set for the future.

"I hear that if wasn't for McGonagall, Ethan and the others would have gotten suspended, too," Timothy turned to Ethan. "I heard a million different things about what you did, and I still can't believe any of them. It's just bonkers,"

"It may have all been a crock of shit, but Farley will never live it down," said Varun with glee. "When he comes back tomorrow, he won't be leader any more. However," He gave Ethan a warning look. "You'll have to deal with O'Neill. People say he is beyond pissed at you. If I were you, I'd skip school before they come back. Say you got to go home for family reasons,"

Ethan personally found O'Neill's anger at him quite peculiar. How was his suspension Ethan's fault? What exactly did they plan to do after handing Hugo and Rose over to the Knights? Whether or not they succeeded, he and his cronies would have been suspended anyway. In fact, one reason they got such a light sentence was because they claimed they got carried away in the moment and weren't _really_ going to hand the Weasleys over to the Knights. They were just silly children, they couldn't be expected to understand that the Knights were cold-blooded murderers that would have sent Hugo and Rose back to their parents piece by piece. In any case, once the thirteen noble characters were emancipated from suspension, Ethan's wizard school experience was going to take a sharp downward turn.

"Um, maybe you could ask someone for protection," suggested Timothy. "You seem quite friendly with Lily Potter now,"

"You're really climbing the ladder," murmured Varun.

Since last week's fiasco, Ethan and Lily were now on greeting terms. If they passed by each other, Lily would wave at him and sometimes even say 'hello'. They've exchanged no other words since the day of the fiasco.

"Someone saw you chatting with her on the grounds after the fight," said Timothy with intrigue. "People were talking about it at the last prefect meeting. What did you talk about?"

Were there spies posted all around the school? "Nothing of interest. Just thanked me for my help," Ethan started finishing his goulash much more quickly.

"Um…" Timothy began nervously. "You think you could help introduce us to her?"

Ethan stopped eating. "…Why?" He asked, bewildered.

"W-Well, you know…" Timothy trailed off evasively. "Does there really need to be a reason?"

"Everything needs a reason," Ethan said with finality. Timothy shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

Varun didn't beat about the bush at least. "Her boyfriend could be our ticket to getting O'Neill's guys off our backs. No one will dare have a go at us if they know we're friends with Torrian Fraser,"

So that was it. Ethan wasn't sure what he had expected. "Hugo is Potter's cousin, and that didn't help him much," Ethan said matter-of-factly.

"Well, I'm sure they're much more on guard now," said Timothy. "All we need is to have Torrian Fraser say that he will, err, not tolerate people messing with us,"

Something about hiding behind Fraser irked Ethan, making him lose what appetite he had left. "I don't know Lily Potter or Torrian Fraser," he said.

"But you helped them out with that fight. They have to pay _some_ attention to you," said Varun. "Just cosy up to them like you did with the Chess Club,"

"I don't know how to do introductions," said Ethan curtly.

Varun glared at him, showing his impatience. "With that clever mouth of yours? Somehow I doubt that,"

Apparently, Timothy and Varun had somewhere acquired a thoroughly wrong impression of who Ethan was. Because he was not going to be 'that'person; someone who forced interactions on others that they didn't want to have. In fact, there were few things he distasted more than forced interaction.

"Why don't you ask Hugo to introduce you?" His cool tone was shedding annoyance.

Timothy answered. "We did, but it didn't go so well. I don't think she remembers us,"

"Well then, there's little I can do to help with that,"

"What the hell does that mean?" growled Varun.

Ethan wanted no more part of this discussion. He stood up from the Squib Table and picked up his school bag. "I'm going to the library to study. If you want to ingratiate yourself to Potter and Fraser, go ahead, but do it yourself. It's called independence,"

Timothy had a horrified expression at how catastrophic the conversation had turned out. Varun seethed. As Ethan walked away, he heard him mutter something that ended with 'selfish'.

Entering the library, Ethan noticed Rose at her usual seat, appearing to be working on homework. He passed by her and sat on the opposite corner of the sector, out of sight behind dozens of bookshelves. Ethan pulled textbook and parchment from his bag and continued his crash course on magic.

He wasn't particularly concerned with the squabble that just happened. He had already acquired all the useful information he will get from Timothy and Varun. He was not afraid of any kind of reprisal he could face from them, even though they shared the same dorm room. It was up to them if they wanted reconciliation; Ethan didn't think much of it either way.

Peace returned to Ethan as he absorbed knowledge, with the aid of Rose's study notes for reinforcement. About fifteen minutes in though, Hugo approached and sat down across from him.

"I thought I'd find you here," said Hugo.

"Hello. Do you need something?" They kept their voices low as they were in the library. Ethan continued his reading.

"Well," said Hugo. "First I owe you a thanks. And an apology,"

Ethan closed his book. "An apology for what?"

Hugo was much taller than Ethan, but his mild manner always made him seem smaller, reduced the presence he could have had.

"I thought about what happened…" said Hugo quietly. "And what you did…wasn't so bad,"

"I never denied it was a dirty tactic," said Ethan casually.

"Though if you think about a certain way," said Hugo. "You were…how to put it – fighting his hate with love, or something,"

Ethan reflexively recoiled, like he'd been hit with an overwhelming stench. "That's…quite an accusation. You're welcome to think that if you want, but that's not what I did,"

Hugo smiled embarrassedly. "Sorry about that. I don't have your vocabulary,"

After a brief silence, Hugo cast a look around to ensure no one else was within earshot. "Anyway, can I ask a favour of you?"

Ethan raised a brow. "A favour?" This couldn't bode well.

"Um, yes. Could you challenge my sister to a chess game? And win?"

To say this caught Ethan by surprise would be an understatement. "Why?"

"Well, it's a little complicated, but ultimately, I'd like for Rose to come to the Chess Club again. She's quite proud, so I thought losing might give her some reason to come back,"

This seemed quite abnormal for Hugo. "Have you tried talking to her?"

"I have. But she make all sorts of excuses and won't listen to me. Umm, things are a bit awkward between Rose and Scorpius right now, though I'm not sure if it's really my place to talk about it,"

If Hugo didn't wish to speak of it, he wouldn't have brought it up. Ethan understood the insinuation. "Did you try to make them talk to each other?"

"I've gotten everyone I know to talk to them, but they can't get through. Rose says she's busy and Scorpius says it's her choice to make. It's been nearly four months now, and they still hardly talk to each other,"

Ethan leaned back and regarded Hugo impassively. "And why does she need to go back to the club?"

"Well…" Hugo said pensively. "It's not 'needed', but she used to spend time there, relax and have fun. She doesn't do much of that anymore,"

"Is that so?" Ethan scrutinized Hugo's behaviour for signs of duplicity. "Is there an ulterior motive?"

Hugo looked earnestly surprised at such a suggestion. "Like what?"

Ethan shrugged. "Who knows," He was more or less convinced that Hugo was honest. "In any case, this plan won't be enough. There's not even a guarantee I can win,"

"It's a long shot, I know," said Hugo meekly. "But it's only a chess match, so it's worth a shot. It'll be interesting for you, too. She's a very good player, the best in the club, most probably the school. You don't have anything to lose,"

Before Ethan could reply, he spotted Rose approaching from over Hugo's shoulder.

"Hello," Rose stood with an Astronomy textbook cradled in her arms. She had likely come by out of curiosity after seeing Hugo heading over to him.

"Hello," returned Ethan.

Rose opened her mouth, but found herself with no words prepared to speak. She clearly wasn't sure how to go about interacting with him. She turned to her brother.

"Hugo," She spoke softly in mind of the library. "I saw you come in earlier. What were you two talking about?"

If Ethan was going to do this, he may as well start now. "We were just talking about you, actually,"

Rose blinked with surprise and looked at them both in turn. "You were?"

"Yes," Ethan continued coolly. "Hugo tells me that you're the best chess player around. I'd like to have a game with you,"

Rose's expression shifted in a clear sign of reluctance. "Board games aren't allowed in the library though,"

Ethan smirked. "Oh don't worry, this won't take long,"

Rose's crystal-blue eyes narrowed at him. "You sound confident,"

Ethan leaned back in his chair and stared back at her. From every inch of surface he emanated pure arrogance. "Of course. Unlike Scorpius, I won't be going easy on you,"

Both Weasleys gaped with shock. "Excuse me?" breathed Rose.

"This library is very quiet, so I'm sure you heard me. Scorpius pretty much admitted it to me in one game we had,"

"You're lying," said Rose.

"You can choose not to believe if you want. But I can beat Scorpius easily. Hugo can attest to that. If you can beat me, you'll still be the best player,"

The tale of Scorpius's tragic rejection was common knowledge among rumour mongers like Timothy. It didn't take a genius to figure out that awkwardness between them was the main reason Rose currently avoided the Chess Club. For those in whom courage was lacking, a very hard shove was required to make them face their unresolved issues. If they didn't listen to Hugo, it was not likely they were going to listen to friendly advice from a Squib stranger. Ethan had little patience for softer approaches anyway.

"Fine," said Rose coldly. "But we're taking it outside,"

"Lead the way," Ethan replied.

The hallway outside of the library was a lounge-like area for group study and discussion, though it was also used simply for chit-chatting. The area was deserted save for them, since it was still lunch time. Ethan sat upon a nice cushioned chair at a circular table. Rose stiffly sat down across from him. Beside her, Hugo looked on nervously, likely severely regretting coming to him for help.

Without a word, Rose pulled out a compact chess set from her school bag and set it upon the table. The pieces strode into place by themselves. Unlike the chess sets in the clubroom which were chipped, dull and dusty, her chess set was well-kept as to appear brand new. He could just imagine her fondly wiping the pieces with a small cloth in her dormitory room.

"What are you smiling about?" asked Rose crossly.

"Your impending defeat. If you don't mind, I'll take black,"

Rose opened with d4 and Ethan responded with Nf6, leading to the Nimzo-Indian Defence. Ethan was prepared for a stiff challenge; what he got was someone who was clearly a tier higher than him in skill and experience. She left no weaknesses to exploit, turned all his ploys against him and quickly put him on the defensive.

"By the way, thank you for the study notes," said Ethan. "They're very helpful. Pawn to b6,"

"You're welcome," said Rose curtly. "Bishop to c4,"

They were now locked in a tight closed game, pawns squared against each other, nearly every square blocked by one or more defenders.

The action was passive but terribly subtle. They moved their pieces carefully, both searching for vulnerabilities to exploit. Ethan preferred tactics to positional play, but it seemed Rose was the reverse, giving her the advantage.

"Pretty _and_ smart," said Ethan nonchalantly. "It's hard to blame Scorpius for his mistake,"

Rose hesitated to reply; she appeared to recognize that Ethan was trying to distract her, but she couldn't ignore what he just said. "…Mistake?"

"Bishop to b7. Yes, mistake. Limerence comes and goes. A transient madness that turns wise men into fools. To chase a lie that they told to themselves,"

The Weasleys' expressions furrowed, their minds struggling to catch up with what he said.

"Scorpius allowed a moment of folly to ruin a perfectly good friendship. A shame really – he struck me as someone smarter than that. So I guess we're both disappointed in him,"

Rose stared blankly at him. "What do you mean?"

Ethan gave a cruel, amused chuckle. "Poor Scorpius. He's trying so hard to be worthy of you. But he can't beat you in grades, he can't beat you in chess…he can't even beat _me_ in chess, and I'm just a lowly Squib. He won't look you in the eye again until he knows he's good enough for you. But with such demanding standards…will he ever make it?"

"Tell me, Rose Weasley," His voice grew hard and cold. "What does it take for a guy to pass as interesting to you? You don't talk to him anymore, so it's clear you've lost all interest, or you just find him annoying. Just let me know and I'll pass on the message,"

Rose was not at fault for avoiding Scorpius, and neither was Scorpius for avoiding her. There is no law or ethical doctrine that demanded broken relationships to be mended, or placed a moral responsibility on any one party to take action – but Ethan was given a task, and he would do it, because he can. He didn't care whose 'fault' it was; Rose was here right now, and was likely easier to manipulate.

"That's not how…" Rose's voice trembled softly between anger and fear. "You don't know how Scorpius feels. You don't know me at all,"

Ethan chuckled again. "You're not as mysterious as you think you are. Enlighten me then. Why are you avoiding Scorpius, after rejecting him? Do you even know yourself?"

Rose opened her mouth, but only shallow breaths emerged. She looked nearly catatonic; Ethan expected more resistance, some lashing out with personal attacks, but to her credit she was taking it quite well. Ethan had barely begun though.

"Well, what do we have here?"

A trio of Slytherin girls were passing by and now approached them.

"Hello Rose, Hugo," greeted the girl at the fore. She was an elegantly beautiful blonde with frosty grey eyes.

"Iris," muttered Hugo. Rose said nothing, only sat still like it would make her invisible.

"Having a chess game? Interesting, who's winning?" Iris invited herself to a seat between Ethan and Rose.

"Rose is currently up a pawn and has the positional advantage," Ethan said to her. Iris reacted slowly, like she had to brace herself before descending to speak to him.

"You're the Squib everyone's been talking about," She turned to him with a delightful smile, well-practiced and likely to have ensnared many fledgling hearts.

Ethan returned a dry smile that was about as honest as hers. "Really? What do they say about me?"

Iris leaned over the table on her elbows. "Well, some say you're insane," she said airily. "Others say you're a vicious liar,"

"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Ethan remarked.

"I think what you did was very brave," Her voice was like half-melted butter; sultry, slippery, with a choking effect on the arteries. "I'm so glad that you stepped in when you did. I shudder to think what would have happened to Hugo and Rose if you hadn't stopped Farley,"

"And yet you didn't step in to help yourself. You must have been busy searching the school for a staff member,"

Iris's perfect visage paused, but did not falter. "Yes. Yes I was,"

"So you're friends with Hugo and Rose?"

"Oh yes," She effused brightly. "Rose and I take many classes together, and we're fellow prefects. Naturally, I would also know her brother," Neither Rose nor Hugo said anything to corroborate this. "So, how do _you_ know Hugo and Rose?"

"I'm a member of the Chess Club,"

"Oh, I see," Iris shone a knowing smile. "Are you a good player?"

"I like to think so. Though only others can answer that question,"

Iris chuckled lightly. "You're so confident. That's so…rare for a Squib. What do you think, Rose? Is he a good chess player?"

Rose was still speechless. Her throat seized as if constricted by a serpent. She tried her best not to show it, but she was trapped, helpless, without a clue of how to escape.

"What's the matter, Rose?" asked Iris with concern. Her eyes gleamed like those of a shark that had smelled blood. "You haven't said a thing. Did something happen? Is it between the two of you?" She glanced between Ethan and Rose.

"We were having a very tense game," injected Ethan. "One false move from either of us can mean our defeat. Just give her time to ponder,"

"Really? Rose, having a difficult game? I heard you crushed everyone easily, including Scorpius," Iris leaned close as she could to Rose, trying to meet her downturned face.

"Did he say something to you?" Iris urged her. "C'mon, you can tell us,"

The face was different, but the dainty posture, haughty attitude, and false charm…it reminded Ethan of _her_. An old anger seethed inside him, but he pressed it down; unlike most, he had control over his emotions, not the other way around.

Ethan had not planned for this intrusion, and it was not doing him any good; it was time to cut and run. He made a show of looking at his watch.

"Actually, I have to go now. We'll have to continue this game another time. You'll know where to find me," He said to Rose as he stood up.

"Leaving already?" bemoaned Iris. "The two of you _are_ hiding something,"

Ethan promptly took his school bag and left, with Iris's silent personal guard eyeing him warily. With him gone, Rose should be able to take her leave as well. Ethan planned to spend the rest of his lunch break studying and lazing at the bank of the Lake. As he entered the tower of the Grand Staircase, he heard footsteps come in from behind.

Hugo looked at him with confused dismay. "What…what was that?" he gasped.

"You asked for my help," Ethan replied.

"I…I only asked you to play a chess game with her. Not – not all that!"

"This is the fastest way to get what you want. You don't have to worry – everything will be back to normal soon. Scorpius may even get a second chance if he plays things right,"

Hugo shook his head repeatedly. "I didn't ask for this…this is too – this is too much,"

Ethan smiled cruelly. "Is this your first time scheming? Let this be a lesson then – trust no one," He started his way down the stairs, leaving Hugo to process his shock.

Ethan descended a couple of flights before a set of footsteps again closed on him. Only this time when he turned around, it was to find Iris.

Iris smiled brightly through her slight windedness from catching up to him. In a way it enhanced the delicate, airy quality about her. Her two companions were nowhere to be seen, likely dismissed by their queenly leader.

"You left in such a hurry – I hope I didn't say anything that upset you,"

"Not at all,"

"Where are you going?" She said with a perfectly affected moderate amount of interest.

"To study by the Lake,"

"Do you mind if I join you? We could chat a little longer," She bestowed him with a demure smile.

Ethan held no illusions about her motives; she wanted to learn more about his relationship with Rose.

"Sorry, but another time,"

Ethan continued down the stairs, but even as he turned, it was impossible to miss the blank shock that descended on Iris's fair features. Being brushed off had to be a rare, if not entirely new experience for her.

"I didn't catch your name," She said, catching up beside him.

"Because no one said it,"

"My name is Iris Lascelles,"

"Ethan Chen,"

"Ethan Chen…do you have a Chinese name?"

Ah, small talk. She was trying to feign interest in him. Few boys would be able to resist such charm. But her efforts were futile on Ethan.

"Yes. Xìn Rén,"

"That has a powerful ring to it. Does it have a meaning?"

"The characters mean 'trust' and 'kindness',"

"Wow. That's a beautiful name,"

"Thank you," Usually it was the guy who was supposed to compliment the beauty of the girl's name. Ethan continued down the stairwell at a pace that was just fast enough to be uncomfortable for conversation. He could just leave her in the dust, but he preferred to take the chance to learn more about her while giving as little as possible in return.

"You're American, too. Where are you from?"

"New York City,"

"Really? I _love_ New York, I've visited it plenty of times. Where –"

A group of students emerged in front of them from the first storey, chatting amongst themselves. Like a kite buffeted by the wind, Iris halted, allowing distance between her and Ethan. A few singular witnesses as they descended was fine, but as he suspected, she didn't want to be caught by too many eyes fraternizing with a Squib.

Ethan carried on out of the Grand Staircase, through the Entrance Hall, and out onto the grounds. Even the early afternoon was cool out in the middle of Scottish nowhere. The castle hill was unoccupied; most students outside were scattered across the lawn, chatting in circles. Iris caught up to him as he was halfway down the slope.

"Ah, where were we?" Iris said blithely, as if she had been interrupted rather than purposely staying away. "Where in New York are you from?"

Ethan stopped and turned to face her.

"There's no need to ask questions you don't care about. Just get to what you want to know,"

After a momentary surprise, Iris smiled at him slyly. "You're very sharp, aren't you? I have to say I'm quite impressed,"

It was a mark of commitment that she did not drop the charm offensive even after being called out on it.

"Hurry up already, before anyone else catches you talking to me,"

Iris spoke gaily. "So you and Rose, have you known each other long?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"I'm just concerned for her. After all, Rose and I have known each other since we started school,"

"Yes, you seem like such good friends,"

Iris carried on undeterred. "What do you think of Rose?"

Typical. "I barely know her,"

"C'mon, you must be a little interested," Iris drew closer, studying his expression for faults, but she would find only a flawless poker face. "Rose is the smartest, maybe prettiest girl in school. She has so many admirers,"

"She could have used those admirers on Sunday,"

"Well, she had you, didn't she?"

At some point, both of them had lost attention of their surroundings, which allowed a pair of professors to sneak up on them on their way down the slope.

"Iris. And…Ethan," said Professor Thomas, greeting them pleasantly.

Iris leapt several feet away from Ethan. "Professor Thomas, Professor Longbottom! Good afternoon," Her elegant persona reformed at once to a hundred percent integrity.

"Dean!" Longbottom frowned at his colleague. "Should just leave them alone…" His voice trailed to a mutter.

"No, Neville, this is part of how it works," Thomas gave Ethan an appraising look which slowly turned remorseful. "Ethan, I forgot to say this before…but I'm sorry. What happened was our fault,"

Yesterday, during Ethan's first D.A.D.A class after that debacle, Thomas took Ethan aside and expressed his thanks for his part in preventing a total catastrophe.

"The Board wanted everyone present for the voting, but we should have left more than just the house-elves behind. They didn't even know what happened," Thomas shook his head with regret.

"Well, it turned out fine in the end, didn't it Professor?" said Iris reassuringly. "Thanks to Ethan,"

"Um, right," Longbottom concurred awkwardly. "I have to thank you as well, Ethan. And sorry you had to step in for us. I'm sure Harry – that is, the Potters and the Weasleys – if they were here right now, I'm sure they would like to thank you,"

"After Ginny chews us out some more," remarked Thomas, now shaking his head from some fearful memory. Longbottom gave an involuntary shudder.

"Professor Longbottom," said Iris with a note of worry. "Is your hand alright? That nasty bite from the Venomous Tentacula…"

Longbottom raised his left arm. "It's healing well Iris, thank you for asking. Fingers still twitchy sometimes, makes me use inappropriate hand – nevermind,"

Iris giggled, a sound so beautifully innocent Ethan almost had to look around for its true source.

"Professor Thomas, is that a new robe? It looks sharp on you, sir. From Twilfitt and Tattings, isn't it?"

Thomas straightened his fitted black robe, of rather lustrous sheen and intricate purple embroidery. "Yes, it is. Bought it yesterday. They only have one branch left now, at Caelorum," He turned to his colleague. "Well, we should be going now – those gourds are still on the loose, aren't they?"

Longbottom cleared his throat. "Right. So long, you two," He left down the slope's path.

Thomas patted Ethan on the shoulder before leaving. "Ethan…good to see you're making friends, even outside your class,"

Ethan and Iris watched the two professors stride swiftly to the base of the hill before turning right towards the greenhouses.

Ethan threw Iris a critical look, then enacted a satirical rendition of her gushing voice. " _'Is that a new robe?'_ Seriously?"

"It _was_ a new robe," a tiny smile cracked over her lips. "Well, I doubt I'll get much more out of you, so…"

She drifted pass him, close enough that their shoulders brushed.

"It was nice meeting you, Ethan," Her whisper tingled in his ear. If he was anyone else in the world, he might have been fooled into thinking she was a nice girl.

* * *

Throughout all of last afternoon and last night, the words of Ethan Chen echoed in her ears. Never in her life had she faced anyone like him. He was supposedly a year younger than her, but carried himself like someone several years older. His countenance was freezing and he showed no signs of feeling fear, shame, or sympathy. It was honestly close to terrifying. Could he be one of those people her uncle and mother referred to as 'psychopaths'? Intelligent and charming, but incapable of feeling love or empathy – their only destiny was to become criminals hunted down by the authorities. If that was the case, they would all do better to stay away from him.

But as scary as he was, Rose had to face him again. She could not let the things he said about Scorpius go by unrefuted. When lunch time came, she will confront him on his lies and falsehoods. Until then, she would have to endure a new rumour that had started to circulate about the school.

"You're not really going out with that Squib, are you?" asked Rose's friend beside her.

"No," The very thought made her skin crawl.

"I guess not," said Erith. She was Korean, with a spiky pixie cut and dark-rimmed glasses. "That would be pretty sudden. _Fumos Sphera,_ "

Erith flicked her wand and produced a spherical cloud of grey smoke. For Charms class today they were to practice different types of spell modifications. Attaching a modification to a base spell allowed it to take on new properties. As Rose was already proficient with all the shape modifiers they were practicing, her attention drifted across the practice room.

Across the wide open space, Rose's classmates were filling the air with variously-shaped clouds of smoke. Today in particular, Scorpius took great care to avoid drawing near her or looking at her direction. He was at the other end of the room on the Slytherin side, demonstrating a wand flourish to Iris. Iris liked to approach Scorpius for any difficulties she had in class, and she had a lot of them despite her high grades. As Professor Flitwick, their Charms professor, passed by them, Iris said something pleasantly and the professor chuckled.

If Rose were to confront Iris on starting the rumours about her and Ethan, she'd only wind up making a fool of herself. Iris could talk circles around her, was more popular, and had much more backup surrounding her. Rose had made that mistake before; she wouldn't be trying again.

When the lunch bell rang, Rose did not go to the Great Hall, but instead to the library to face Ethan Chen. On her way there, she met with a couple of hostile glares due to her association with her parents. The new rumours linking her to a Squib likely did not help her public image either.

Ethan was reading at the same table he was yesterday. Upon noticing her, he closed the book and gestured for her to sit. The air of the library was magically cooled for comfort, but Ethan's imperious gaze dropped it to shivering. Despite emitting such pressure, he sat completely at ease, like someone relaxing at home. Rose couldn't imagine where he acquired such self-confidence – she had imagined herself as a Squib before, and couldn't see how they could bear such disability. Yet here this person was, not only ignoring his disadvantage, but behaving as if those around him were the impaired ones.

"It seems there's a new rumour going around," said Ethan. "It'd be best if no one sees us here,"

Rose understood what he meant; she cast an Imperturbable Barrier around their table.

"Shall we continue our game then?" He waited for her to bring out the chess set.

"No," She gathered her nerve and faced him squarely. "I didn't come here to play chess,"

The corner of Ethan's mouth turned upward slightly. "Ah, so you've sorted out your thoughts on the matter?"

"Hugo put you up to this," She had cornered her brother last evening and made him explain himself.

"He only wanted me to play a game with you, hoping it would bring you back to the club. Everything else I did was out of my own curiosity,"

Rose would have asked him to elaborate on his 'curiosity', and but feared she would just be diverted into another verbal sand trap. She came here for one reason only.

"Everything you said about Scorpius was a lie," Rose stated harshly.

"You'll have to refresh my memory,"

"You said that Scorpius went easy on me at chess games. That's not true. Scorpius would never do that,"

"And did you ask him about this?"

Rose hesitated. "No," Scorpius and her had not spoken since last Sunday, and even then it was brief and uncomfortable. He asked if she was fine and she said 'fine', before promptly retreating to the Ravenclaw common room.

"Well then, that's just an assumption," Ethan wagged a finger at her. "Ravenclaws shouldn't make assumptions. You're supposed to be the smart, objective ones,"

Rose clenched her teeth. She prided herself as being calm and objective, yet she struggled to think straight against this person. Her mind was in a haze; she was like a blind rat being led at his whim.

"But you are right in this case. At least, Scorpius never intimated such a thing to me. I only said that to goad you into playing chess with me," He admitted his lie and manipulation with total nonchalance. "Still, you were quite confident in Scorpius's integrity. You and Scorpius are old friends, right? Been friends since first year, at least?"

Rose hated how he seemed to know everything about her, while she knew next to nothing about him. "Yes,"

"Were you close friends?"

"I don't see why I have to tell you,"

"Ah, so pretty close then,"

There was no getting past this person. Her thoughts might as well be scrawled over her forehead for him to read.

Rose and Scorpius used to hang out together all the time. They were the two smartest students in the year; they became friends naturally as they competed for the highest grade of every test. They always partnered for assignments in class. People teased about them since first year, but they just ignored it…Or did they?

"What are you trying to do?" asked Rose. "What have Scorpius and I even done to you?"

"Oh, the two of you have been nothing but helpful to me," said Ethan. "But that doesn't factor into this matter. You assume I have some sort of grand scheme in play here. I don't. I just…" He paused, considering his words. "I just enjoy messing with people,"

"So you're just a pathological liar?" Rose kept in mind that what he just said could also have been a lie.

"Oh, you know what that is? Not bad," He gave a patronizing smile. "Maybe I am. Lies are more useful, and much kinder for everyone involved. Everyone lies, especially to themselves,"

"Your lies are far from kind," said Rose.

Ethan chuckled. It was a laugh that could have come straight from a dark wizard, from one of the voice-narrated children's books Rose read as a child.

"If you don't like my lies, you had better be prepared for my truths,"

Ravenclaws were a varied group, but one thing they all had in common was that they did not shirk from hard truth. "I'm not afraid of your truths,"

"Is that so?" Ethan studied her carefully. His dark eyes bore into hers, with such firm audacity she had never faced before. No one had ever been so rude as to stare at her so fixedly; it sent an endless chill up her shoulders. But she did not break eye contact. Of all things, she would not betray herself here; belief in truth and reason preceded all other convictions.

"Very well," said Ethan, looking strangely intrigued. "No more prancing about. Let's dive into the heart of the matter,"

"Let's see," He began casually. "Scorpius confessed to you in June, didn't he? OWLs coming up, the Americans sweeping across England, and you hadn't seen your parents in three months since they turned traitor against all wizardkind. Hmm, not the best time, I would think. He probably thought that telling you his feelings would make you feel better. Oh, how wrong he was,"

"He wasn't wrong," said Rose quietly.

"Oh? How so?"

Rose revisited the thoughts she had sorted out last night. This guy called Scorpius's feelings a mistake – an error of judgement. She could not allow him to belittle his feelings like that.

"Scorpius made no mistake. It's not a mistake to – to like someone," Rose sputtered out.

Ethan's cruel smile gave the smallest twitch. "Given the trouble it has caused, you can't not call it a mistake,"

"It's not a mistake," Rose said again, as if that was an argument.

"Then why did you punish him for it?"

This person was full of loaded questions and loaded statements. "Punish?"

"You're avoiding him, avoiding the Chess Club. Why is that?" His voice lowered thoughtfully. "Are you trying to be considerate? Waiting for his illness to pass? Such a cold kindness. Your noble pity for him is what's freezing your relationship,"

His words gnawed into her. "That's not…I'm not pitying him," Yet the words came out feebly, with no conviction.

"I thought we were speaking truthfully. Why don't you sit together anymore?"

"Because –" Her voice caught in her throat. "H-He's the one avoiding me!" She cried sharply; she then shrunk back, shocked at her own outburst.

"Scorpius has definitely been cowardly as well," Ethan responded calm as ever. "But you're just going to blame him? You're going to wait for him to reach out to you? Clearly his friendship doesn't mean much to you,"

"Yes it does!" Her fists slammed on the study table. If they weren't inside an Imperturbable Barrier, the whole library sector would have heard it. "Stop making statements that you know aren't true!"

That was it. She had lost her cool. Now he was just going to rip her apart again, laugh at her weakness. She could barely hold a conversation with a normal person – how did she ever believe she could go toe-to-toe with a psychopath?

When Ethan spoke again, she almost didn't recognize his voice. It was softer, pensive, weary. Even his cold, imposing presence was mellowing out.

"So lucky," he muttered. He still stared at her, but with a gentler, passive countenance. A wan smile passed over his lips.

"There's such a thing as being too considerate," he said slowly. "There's no reason for you to feel guilty. If you keep acting like you've hurt Scorpius, it's hard for him to act like he isn't,"

Rose felt her anger dissipate like it was air. So that was it. The haze in her head was clearing now; everything was starting to make sense.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" she asked sincerely.

Ethan contemplated for a moment. "Just behave as you did before the confession,"

That was much easier said than done. "I can't just pretend it didn't happen,"

"Pretending is what we do all the time. Thankfully, Scorpius is a little smoother than you – all you have to do is give him the right signal. If he still wants to be cowardly after that, well…maybe I'll have a word with him, too,"

"Don't you dare talk to him," said Rose, but with firmness instead of anger. She was not going to let Scorpius suffer what she was going through.

Ethan let out a small chuckle, but without meanness, only amusement. "You know I'm just a Squib, right? If he doesn't like what I'm saying, he can just Stun me and go on his merry way,"

"We're not _all_ like that," said Rose.

"Well, you're clearly not, or I would have been unconscious a long time ago,"

Rose stared down at the table. "I don't know if we can go back to the way we were," A moment later she realized that she had just voiced her concern out loud.

"That may not happen until either of you get attached. But you can definitely retrieve some degree of normalcy. He won't be getting over you for a while, unless you become a lot less attractive in a hurry. But he's a mature guy, and a Slytherin. He can control his feelings,"

Ethan leaned back in his chair, as if this had all been a most enjoyable chat.

"One last thing," he said. "Why did you reject him?"

This was the question she dreaded, the question that kept her up last night.

"It's not because I didn't find him interesting," she said quietly. Yesterday, Ethan had suggested it so assuredly that she almost believed it was true.

"I just…I just never thought about him that way before. I needed time to think," She had only ever intimated this to Lily, and now she was revealing her deepest feelings to a – an insane, vicious liar. He probably already knew anyway.

"But that time grew longer and longer, until Scorpius accepted that you turned him down," said Ethan.

If he wasn't a Squib, Rose would be pretty sure he was using Legilimency on her.

"Scorpius is…" She wanted to say 'a good friend', but her voice trailed off. Was it really something she believed, or just something she wanted to say to convince herself? She almost wished the boy in front of her did have advanced Legilimency, so he could interpret the vague feelings within her that she couldn't decipher herself.

"I just don't think I'm ready for a relationship," she said. "I can't even imagine myself being in one. There's schoolwork, NEWTs, and then this war…"

"You're certain you would just fail horribly, so you don't want to try," he muttered.

Rose stared at him. Ethan was pensive again, with a distant look in his eye.

"You're not alone in that feeling," he murmured, just barely audible.

Rose was so surprised, she didn't have a response. A long silence passed, and then her multi-mirror heated up from the pocket of her robes. She pulled it out.

Lily's face appeared before the background of the Great Hall. "Rose! I just heard the craziest rumour!" She filled the screen with animated astonishment.

"That I'm going out with the Squib? It's not true," Rose stated flatly. Ethan quietly listened in to the conversation.

"Well, yeah, I thought so. You're at the library, right?" She peered over Rose's background. "I need some help with this Transfig homework – I'm coming over,"

"Wait –" Before Rose could object, she had already ended the connection.

Recognizing the issue, Ethan stood up. "Well, I'm hungry as hell, so I'll be leaving now,"

Rose raised her wand dispelled the Imperturbable Barrier doming them. Standing up, she realized suddenly that she was quite famished herself. At least it was all over now.

"About time you dropped that barrier,"

To both Ethan's and Rose's shock, Iris appeared out of thin air, seated at the table beside theirs. Her wand was raised like Rose's; she stood up and gracefully returned it behind her sleeve.

How did she know they were here? Of course – Rose's use of the Imperturbable Barrier made everything within invisible, including the table. Iris must have recognized that they were at the missing table, then used her own Imperturbable Barrier to wait them out. Rose had never seen or heard of Iris doing such a thing before – did she always go to such lengths for gossip?

Ethan returned to his usual self-assured composure. "I see you didn't drag your friends along for your little stakeout. That would've just been mean,"

"You two were under that barrier a very long time," said Iris with a terribly suggestive smile. "What were you doing in there?"

"Just simple chit-chat. This is a library, so we didn't want to make any noise,"

"Oh? What did you talk about?"

"Homework," Ethan stated dryly. "There was no need to be so shy, you know. If you had just knocked on the barrier or something, we would have let you in,"

"Or you might have escaped," said Iris.

"Escape? What reason could we possibly have to run away from you?"

Rose wondered if these two were actually enjoying their verbal tango. She wasn't sure she had ever seen Iris engage someone like this; then again, she didn't exactly follow Iris around.

The sound of footsteps announced Lily's arrival. Spotting Iris and Ethan, her expression widened curiously.

"Ethan! You were here, too? Hello, Iris," She greeted the latter more impassively.

"Hello, Lily," Iris returned cordially.

"Umm, what is everyone doing here?" Lily asked them.

Iris looked over at Rose and Ethan. "I don't know; these two were hiding under an Imperturbable Barrier since the start of lunch. Who knows what they were doing in there?"

Lily blinked confusedly. Rose sprung to prevent any misunderstanding.

"It's not what you think, Lily," She said hastily.

"Well, yeah, of course," Lily responded blithely, more surprised at Rose's hastiness than anything. "I mean, no one who knows you would believe that,"

"Exactly," spoke Ethan. Rose could hear his tone shift back to coldness. It seemed he was dropping his pretence with Iris. "The very notion is ludicrous. What on earth could have inspired such a crazy idea?" He stepped menacingly towards Iris.

Ethan was not a large, imposing figure; he had little to no muscle, and he was of the same height as the three of them. Yet like a shadow cast from a light, he could fill a whole room with his presence as easily as the flick of a match.

Iris backed away, fear dawning on her face. "W-Well, there's a rumour going around –"

"Oh, you mean the rumour that you started?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Iris said reflexively.

"Well, it was either you, or one of your friends acting on your behalf," His voice was crueller than when he attacked Farley, colder than when he attacked Rose. "I'm glad you took the trouble of looking for us – it saves me the trouble of looking for you,"

Rose found herself feeling uncommonly sympathetic towards Iris. Lily looked at Ethan with blank shock.

"What exactly were you hoping to achieve with this gossip? Make Rose's life harder than it already is? Such bitterness, and for the sake of what? A stupid schoolgirl crush,"

There was a venom, a loathing in his voice; Iris retreated further and stumbled into her chair, nearly knocking it over.

"Let me make this as clear as possible: leave Rose alone from now on and I won't tell Scorpius about all the pain you've caused Rose,"

"What – how did you –" Rose saw Iris lose her words for the first time.

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out your asinine teenage love triangle," His posture was controlled, restrained, but from underneath it emerged a deep, seething hatred.

Iris was thoroughly shaken. "Why do you care so much?" She glanced at Rose. "You – you actually _do_ like her?" She breathed.

Ethan's gaze burned into Iris. "You're _that_ jealous, huh? It irks you even if it's a Squib," His anger simmered just a little, and he took a step back.

"But the answer is no,"

In an instant, all trace of anger was gone. His presence was empty, cold as the deepest dungeon. When he spoke, it was calm, firm, and without any emotion.

"I have no interest in Rose, or will I ever build an interest in anyone. Love is a mental aberration, an invasion upon the rational mind. It is a set of evolved behaviours we inherited from our ancestors. Designed to compel us into reproduction for the continuation of the species. A vestigial system that is more liability than function to modern man's aspirations,"

"Love is irrational. And as you people are aware, irrationality leads only to mistakes," He glanced over at Rose. "It leads only to cruelty," He glanced at Iris. "A meaningless struggle to a goal never worth the price. A promise given to all, only fulfilled for an arbitrary few. It is the oldest con, the most pervasive delusion. It is the ultimate lie."

"In short, I don't believe in love," he turned his back on Iris and walked away between Rose and Lily. "So I don't ever want to hear myself being associated with it,"


	10. Chapter 10 - The Hateful

Chapter 10 – The Hateful

For today's Charms class, they were to group in pairs and practice held, charged and multicast spells on each other. These spell modifications were quite self-explanatory: held spells were spells that were held within the wand after being readied, to be unleashed swiftly at the appropriate moment. Charged spells were imparted additional energy after readying, making the cast more powerful and effective. And multicast spells were imparted additional energy after readying to unleash multiple instances of the spell at the same time.

Taking a deep breath, Rose crossed into the Slytherin side of the practice room, heading towards Scorpius. Along the way, she heard a few snide whispers, but paid no mind to whatever they may be.

Scorpius had just started sparring with a friend of his. He flourished his wand and held the spell just as Rose approached.

"Hey," She started meekly. "Um, do you want to partner up?"

What she was currently doing chafed against all her logical instincts; Scorpius already had a partner, she already had a partner in Erith, there was no valid excuse here to approach Scorpius. Still, perhaps non-logical reasons counted as reasons, too.

Scorpius stood stunned. His friend took a moment, then rolled his eyes and left to find another partner. Rose took the place where he stood and prepared herself to counter Scorpius's spell. Several pairs behind her was Iris and one of her friends. Rose decided not to turn back to see how she might be reacting.

Rose recalled the days when sparring with Scorpius was completely natural. She tried to channel herself from that time. "Um, the energy required to hold a spell rises exponentially the longer you hold it," said Rose, her voice flat like that of a terrible actor. "So don't take too long,"

Scorpius soon recovered and fired the spell. A jet of blue light rushed at Rose and she countered it – the beam burst into nothing. Now it was her turn.

" _Insigno,"_ She twirled her wand and drew it close to her side. She felt the pressure of the magical energy contained within and willed it to stay still. Visualization and focus were key to all magic – the unimaginative, the absent-minded, and the lazy did not make good wizards. The mind of a great witch or wizard strikes a balance between vivid imagination and unwavering concentration.

Rose tried for some conversation while she practiced holding the spell for at least a minute.

"So. How is the club doing?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Scorpius shouted. He was several feet away and the room was full of chatter and _'Insigno!'_ , so her voice couldn't reach him. Rose corrected that by casting a Listening Charm on Scorpius, enabling her to hear anything he said like he was right in front of her.

She signalled to Scorpius by pointing to her ear, and he cast the charm on her as well – it was something they used to do often in order to chat even from across a classroom.

"How is the club doing?" Rose repeated.

"Oh. It's doing fine," Scorpius said vaguely. "Still hard to find members. It _is_ chess after all,"

They were both skilled enough with Charms that they were able to chat while almost idly trading spells. "How many members have you got now?"

"Ah...There's me, Hugo, Lorcan, Lysander…and three Squibs you haven't really met yet,"

"I've met Ethan," Rose said hesitantly.

"Yeah." Several seconds of silence fell between them. Rose threw her Marking Charm at Scorpius and he deftly countered the blue jet.

"You didn't include me," Rose spoke softly.

"Well…you're with the Duelling Club now, aren't you?"

"I'm still a member of the Chess Club," she said, managing to pick up some confidence. "I-I think I'll attend club today,"

Scorpius blinked like he didn't understand her. "Really?"

"Yes. I think I'm getting rusty,"

"Oh. Alright then," He held another Marking Charm and fired it. It was subtle, but she could tell that he was suddenly much happier. His flourish was more buoyant and he was fighting hard not to smile too broadly. Rose couldn't describe the relief that poured through her; after a year being crushed by one terrible thing after another, finally something good was happening again. She found herself fighting to moderate the size of her smile as well.

They practiced several volleys of held spells before Professor Flitwick announced for the class to move on to charged spells.

"You alright?" He asked with concern, as Rose readied a charged Marking Charm.

"What do you mean?" Magical energy coursed through her body as she willed it into her wand. She held the charged spell as she listened to Scorpius.

"About what happened with Farley and O'Neill's crew…I would still be shaken if I were you,"

"I'm fine," She unleashed her spell; the blue jet was brighter, but it was counterspelled just as easily. Charged spells were more useful for breaking through Shields and Barriers.

"I don't think they really meant to – they were just furious at the news, about the Irish Ministry and all," said Scorpius as he returned a charged spell at Rose.

Rose hoped that was the case, because the alternative was terrible to contemplate. Her Aunt Ginny had rushed into school that Sunday afternoon, and became absolutely beside herself when she learnt what had happened. After venting on Professor McGonagall, Longbottom and Thomas, she hugged the lot of them like they had survived a warzone. Aunt Ginny demanded that they be given protection, like house-elf bodyguards, but McGonagall said that it was not within her power. Rose personally thought that bodyguards were a bit of an overreaction – but it was true that they had to start thinking of how to defend themselves.

"I'm worried about Hugo. Now that those guys are back, they might try again,"

"Hmm. Yeah. I spoke to Torrian about that," said Scorpius. "Torrian's about the only person who can intimidate that lot, but Torrian doesn't really know how to intimidate. I've told him not to wait for something to happen, but to go up and scare them first. Tell O'Neill he'll rip his arms off if he goes near any of our friends,"

"Will he really rip his arms off?" That was, needless to say, against school rules.

"If he does, it'll just be suspension and some trouble for Madam Longbottom, not a big deal. It'll still hurt though,"

Now the class moved onto multicast spells, which were a challenge to execute and aim correctly. Students began firing two to four beams of light at once. However, most of their spells either flew past their target, hit someone else, or exploded at the tip of their wand.

As Rose readied her multicast, Scorpius spoke tentatively. "Rose, if you don't mind me asking…did something happen between you and Ethan?"

Rose fired, and her two beams soared past either side of Scorpius, hitting the wall behind him; they marked the wall with two small glowing points. Rose winced; she was supposed to have already mastered multicasts from Duelling Club practice.

"Why would you think that?" said Rose as Scorpius prepared his own volley.

"Well, there's this rumour going around –"

"It's not true,"

"I know. But it must have come from somewhere,"

"It didn't come from anywhere," She said forcefully. The lie tasted sour in her mouth.

"I see," Only one of Scorpius's attacks approached Rose – the other arced away to her right. She counterspelled his attack and tried her own again. Scorpius gave her a strange look, as if holding back a comment. Rose realized a second later that she was a terrible liar; her certain denial pretty much revealed that she did know where the rumour came from.

"Well, no one really believes it; it's mostly going around as a joke. After all, he did appear out of nowhere to save you and Hugo,"

Rose had to admit that; no matter what kind of person he was, he did in fact step in when he didn't have to, for no apparent reason other than to help Hugo and her.

Scorpius shifted the subject. "But believable or not, O'Neill's going to use it against you and Ethan. Did they give you any trouble this morning?"

Rose shrugged. "O'Neill cracked a joke at breakfast, but that was it," Rose fired and missed again. If Scorpius was perturbed by her unusually poor casting, he politely did not show it. She was starting to feel a little frustrated.

"Yes, I saw that. That's really abnormal for O'Neill. He was always an arsehole, but he usually prefers to stay behind the scenes. He coordinated the ambush on Torrian, and he goaded Farley into throwing Hugo out. But Stunning Farley in the back and riling up the school – he put his own neck out for a big play, and you and Ethan ruined it,"

"A play? For what?"

Scorpius stopped practicing and continued to speak. "I don't know. An offering to the Knights? O'Neill likes to drop hints that he plans to join them, but he could just be blowing hot air. In any case, he displayed his true colours to the whole school for nothing, so he has a serious bone to pick with the two of you,"

It was a sick feeling to be hated by someone, no matter who that person was. And reconciliation did not seem likely, so she had no choice but to live with it. "But I didn't do anything. Ethan ruined his plan,"

"You put up that illusion-barrier, which stalled things until Ethan showed up. If anyone was useless, it was me," Scorpius looked down with a wry smile.

"You weren't useless," Rose responded immediately. "You helped us fight them off when they attacked,"

"Just next to useless then. What Ethan did – I could never come up with that, let alone pull it off. Everyone's praising Torrian for stopping the fight and calling Ethan a dirty liar. But the truth is, no one wants to admit what they saw there – that was a genius,"

Rose didn't like the term 'genius'. People often called her a genius, because she got the highest grades in school, but there was always a sentiment in their tone that she disliked, a hint of jealousy or self-pity. Most seemed to think that she didn't need to put in as much effort as others in order to learn. Her own observations suggested that she in fact put in more effort learning than most, which to her was a much more straightforward explanation.

Scorpius had that sentiment in his tone. Rose had known him since first year and she had never noticed until now. He had never shown his side of him to her – or perhaps she had been too caught up in her own concerns to notice. Yet an outsider who had only known him for two weeks was able to see it.

"I wonder what kind of background he had to have made him so…strange," said Scorpius. "I asked him about his family, but he became very vague and evasive. Said his family was as average as can be. Maybe it's just natural for some people,"

Ethan's final tirade on Iris came to her mind. His skills and intellect aside… _that_ could not have been natural. "I'm sure there's an explanation for who he is. But conventional guesses probably aren't going to give us the answer,"

"Actually, I have a suspicion about Ethan…" Scorpius said uncertainly, as if unsure if he should be broaching the topic. "Though I haven't had the chance to look into it yet, because I'd need to do research outside…I don't think he is who he says he is,"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean – never mind," Scorpius shook his head. "It's a ridiculous idea. Anyway, if O'Neill tries anything again, maybe we should ask Ethan for advice. Ask him what he would do,"

Rose had had enough; she had to say something. Even if it was presumptuous, even if it was harsh or inconsiderate, she couldn't let Scorpius continue like this.

"I don't need his advice. I'm not Ethan," she said firmly. "And you're not Ethan. And you shouldn't be. So don't compare yourself to him. Or anyone for that matter,"

Scorpius stared back at her, surprised at her outburst. Then his expression softened. "I see. You're right,"

Again, Rose felt a weight lift from her shoulders, a sense of progress in the face all the nightmare she was enduring.

"Enjoying your chat, you two?" a rather high-pitched, creaky voice came from somewhere low and to the right.

Professor Flitwick looked up at the pair of them questioningly. They had not seen him approach since he was only half their height. Professor Flitwick was half-goblin – he had the height and stocky stature of a goblin, but not the beak-like nose, pointed ears and sharp teeth. He was the one of the oldest teachers of Hogwarts, nearly a hundred years-old; his bald head was circled by broad mane of white hair that joined to a flowing cottony moustache. But despite his age he was still sharp and skilled in part due to the longevity of goblins.

"Even if you're already adept at multicasting, Rose, there's always room to improve," Flitwick flicked his wand upwards and five Marking Charms flew into air. They swirled around in a sphere of intricate, synchronized beauty, before colliding together in a shower of blue sparks.

"I won't ask you to do exactly that, but can you at least fire five Markers into your partner? And make them arcing casts – to make them harder to counter," Flitwick gracefully stepped back and waited for her.

Rose composed herself and faced Scorpius. She was mostly proficient only up to four-casts. She had never successfully done a converging five-cast before, and her recent string of flops made her doubly nervous. _Visualization, focus…_ Rose imagined the Marking Charms firing from her wand and closing on Scorpius. No, closing on Ethan, and they were Silencing Charms instead.

" _Insigno!"_

Five beams spread out in a high arc. They flew so fast Scorpius had no chance to react to even one. He staggered back from the sheer glare of the light, as they converged from multiple angles and struck his head, chest, shoulders and leg. If the Marking Charms had any force behind them, Scorpius would have been thrown off his feet. At each of the points Rose struck was a glowing blue dot.

"One, two, three, four, five! Very good Rose!" Flitwick chirped. "Five points to Ravenclaw. Though I shudder to wonder what this boy did to you!"

* * *

The thirteen students who got themselves suspended were comprised of several bully cliques from different houses and years. Now that they were back from suspension, Ethan's brief respite was over, and he would have to return to watching his back for pranks and jinxes.

Farley's troupe was his first concern, since he took the classes with them and they had the most cause to exact revenge. But for their first day back, they had done nothing to him so far other than throw loathing looks. Presumably, they were on probation in lieu of further punishment, and Farley in particular didn't want to stack more evidence against himself for his upcoming expulsion hearing.

He was just thinking that his situation might not be so bad, when his bowl of milk pudding shot up and coated his face.

As he wiped the hot pudding from his eyes, he heard a row of cackles from the Gryffindor table. Another clique from the thirteen students, sixth-years, had sat near the Squib table to watch their handiwork.

Timothy looked away politely and Varun carried on eating. They were seated with their friends several feet away from Ethan. He had been eating alone as he did since their little dispute. It worked out well for them, as the school's bullies were now too focused to him to notice them anymore.

Ethan caged his anger and proceeded to swipe the remaining pudding off his face and robes with absolute composure, like he was brushing off dust. He took his belongings and left the Hall for the nearby washroom.

As luck would have it, descending the Grand Staircase for lunch was Iris and her two followers.

"Oh look, It's Rose boyfriend," said one of them, like pointing out a wild animal.

"Eww, what is that on his face?" said the other one, as the three of them reached the foot of the stairs.

Iris said nothing at first, but grew a wicked smile as she realized what had happened. "Oh dear, tripped into some pudding? You should be more careful," Her tone turned into a warning at the last line.

Ethan would have preferred to just carry on to the washroom, but he couldn't allow Iris's smugness to go unrectified. He couldn't afford to look weak to Iris just a day after threatening her, or she would not follow through with leaving Rose alone.

"Oh really?" His voice lowered with menace. "And what should I be careful of?"

The two girls beside Iris were bewildered that their victim dared to ask them a question.

Iris faced him haughtily. "The people that you've ticked off, obviously. Having enemies at Hogwarts is a dangerous thing,"

 _Right. Because everyone here is armed._ Save for the Squibs.

"I've realized that," Ethan replied. "This school is insulated and fractured, and it is too huge for teachers to police. Students get to carry their wands everywhere and do as they please, and teachers can only respond after the fact. There's a giant squid in the lake, a tree that clubs people who go near it, and a forest full of unknown monstrosities, but the most dangerous thing in this school has to be the petty, small-minded viciousness of its students,"

Iris's friends sent glares of indignation, but were mentally unequipped to respond.

"Well, life is tough, I hear," said Iris. "Maybe if you weren't a loser Squib with no friends, you'd be able to defend yourself,"

Such shallow insults could not graze Ethan. He only paid her a smile for the cute little effort. "I suppose a school princess like yourself must be able to handle whatever this school dishes out,"

Her haughty front wavered. "What do you mean?"

"Rumours fly don't they? And the student body is so small, it's like wild animals in a cage. You wizards are so starved of entertainment in this castle, you seek it in nosing and hurting each other. Anything to feel bigger in this little world, because you know you are nothing outside of it. Malicious gossip is a formidable weapon here, but you would already know that, wouldn't you?"

Ethan stepped closer; Iris's friends fell back, but Iris was paralyzed.

"How do you think you would fare against a taste of your own medicine?" He whispered, though he was still audible to the three of them. "People love tearing down the high and mighty. The things I could do to you would destroy your life forever. You might not believe me, but I've done it before,"

"What do you think you're doing?" a snarling voice loomed from behind.

Ethan should have known better than to stick around so long; after seeing him get facepainted with pudding, of course Aidan O'Neill would come out to rub it in his face.

The seventh-year scowled at him with pure effusive hatred spewing from his features. "I said, what do you think you're doing, Squib?"

Ethan played obtuse as he genuinely didn't know what he was implying. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

O'Neill turned to Iris with a demanding glare. She cast her face downward.

"It was nothing. I was making fun of him, and he tried to get aggressive," Iris spoke flatly.

O'Neill gave no indication that he could see Iris's friends. He scrutinized Iris a moment longer, before returning to what he came for.

"Haven't cleaned up yet, Squib? Maybe you like white sticky stuff on your face,"

It would have been a cosmic comedic tragedy if Ethan had washed up without anyone cracking a joke like that.

"I hope those Gryffindors think it was worth it, because High Table was half-filled. They're going straight back to suspension," said Ethan.

O'Neill grinned. "No, they're not. Longbottom's checking their wands right now, but he won't find anyone who cast a Rocketing Charm recently,"

Ethan had read about that; there was a spell that allowed one to learn the most recent spells a wand had cast. Unfortunately it seems there were simple ways around such inspections.

"Because you were the one who cast it," said Ethan.

"You shouldn't make wild accusations of others," mocked O'Neill. His gloating smile was nauseating. "You should have been suspended for the lies you spouted last week,"

"And you should be jailed for attempted kidnap and murder," said Ethan airily. "So I guess we both can't get what we want. Well, life is tough, I hear," He turned to Iris with a meaningful look. Iris happened to look his way as well – they traded eye contact which she broke off immediately.

"What the hell was that?" O'Neill rounded on Iris; his shout made her step back in fright.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb, Iris," O'Neill growled.

Ethan seemed to have stumbled upon something. "Why do you care so much, O'Neill? Is Lascelles your girlfriend?"

There was a slight wince from everyone, but O'Neill remained silent, so that wasn't it. "Ex-girlfriend?"

Iris and O'Neill showed a slightly larger wince – not a definitive tell, but Iris's friends didn't have the same poker face; they inhaled visibly.

"So that's it," It was Ethan's turn to sound mocking. "But who dumped whom?" He scratched his chin with sarcastic thoughtfulness. He could easily check the truth by reading their reactions again, but he didn't need to. "Lascelles dumped you, didn't she?"

O'Neill's slick, handsome face twisted with red, while the rest watched on aghast.

"Ah, I wonder why," Ethan continued. "Was it the callous self-conceit? The controlling behaviour? Or were you just…inadequate in some other area?"

Ethan realized as he was speaking that he was playing with fire. O'Neill was a whole different beast from Farley – all beasts will bite if prodded, but some will go straight for the jugular.

In an instant, O'Neill raised his wand to Ethan's throat. He felt a ring of pressure tighten around his neck – his flesh was squeezing in, his Adam's apple was pressing into his throat. He couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

"Inferior beings should know their place," said O'Neill, his angry snarl slowly turning into glee. "You're far too arrogant for a Squib,"

Ethan ran for it – he turned back towards the Great Hall. But before he could take a step, the pressure on his neck hoisted him into the air like a hangman's noose. He clutched around his neck, behind his head, reaching for a rope that wasn't there. His head was growing hot; as he swung helplessly a few inches off the floor, a light-blue dome surrounded them – an Imperturbable Barrier.

The three girls were starting to realize that they had shifted away from innocent bullying.

"He's suffocating," breathed Iris. "He's going to faint,"

"I know," said O'Neill. "A little brain damage will do him some good, I think,"

Ethan clapped his hands together, begged soundlessly for mercy, but O'Neill only laughed. A cruel, unmitigated laugh of pleasure.

"Oh, _now_ you learn some manners?" His grin was like a gash across his handsome face. "Good. But you still need to be punished,"

With what little oxygen he had left in his brain, he searched for something, anything, that could get him to stop, but his muteness reduced his options to nothing.

 _Is…is this it?_ Ethan was prepared to die a long time ago; he had nothing of importance to live for. But this… _Not like this…_ He wanted to go on his own terms…but perhaps this was the death he deserved…

"What the – my barrier," O'Neill looked around his conjured dome; the light-blue walls were crackling, fizzling apart. The ring of pressure vanished and Ethan fell on his hands and knees as blood flooded back into his brain. Gulping air back into his lungs, he looked up as the Imperturbable Barrier around him disintegrated. Standing just outside the dispelled dome wall was a creature he had never seen before.

It was barely three feet tall, as tall as Ethan was on all fours. It had leathery tan skin and a scrawny body hunched forward, with a large head almost too big for it. Wide, pointed ears fanned from its head like bat wings, and a long straight nose extended from its face like a pencil. It appeared to be wearing a small white towel, wrapped around it like a toga, with the crest of Hogwarts on its front.

"A-Assault…" the creature stammered in a high squeaky voice. "A-Assaulting another student is – is against the rules,"

O'Neill's wand slipped back into his sleeve. He looked down at the creature like it were a stain on his robes. "There was no assault here, elf. We were just having a chat,"

 _So this is a house-elf._ Ethan had read about them while catching up on his History of Magic. Conquered and enslaved by wizards in ancient times, all house-elves were magically bound to serve whoever was their master.

The house-elf quivered under O'Neill's rough gaze. "I'm sorry, sir," He spoke with his large head bowed, enormous brown eyes staring at O'Neill's feet. "But I am having to give you d-detention,"

O'Neill stood stunned for a moment. "You dare give me detention?" His voice rumbled with outrage. "Who do you think you are?"

"K-Kleaner is Caretaker, sir," mumbled the house-elf. "The Caretaker is able to be giving students punishments, sir,"

O'Neill bared his gritted teeth. "You…you must be tired of living," He flexed his wand hand and closed on the house-elf, but halted as he noticed students all around them who had stopped to watch the commotion.

A new set of footsteps approached them from the Great Hall.

Professor Crawford stopped before them all with a surly leer. "What's going on here?" He looked down at Ethan. "What's wrong with you, boy?"

Ethan stood up. Crawford's small eyes narrowed on his neck, which was likely bruised with a red band. He observed O'Neill, Iris and her friends in turn, before resting his glare on Kleaner.

"Did you do this, elf?" He rounded on him.

Kleaner had to crane his head almost vertically up to face Crawford. He shook his head hard, his ears flapping. "No, sir! Kleaner is never hurting a student! It was –"

"Why are you visible?" Crawford cut over him. "A house-elf's job is to be unseen,"

"K-Kleaner had to be visible sir, to stop –"

"Go," Crawford said a moment after last speaking, ignoring Kleaner's explanation. "I'm in charge of all discipline matters now. All disciplinary actions must go through me. You don't get to order humans, elf. When I succeed McGonagall, the first thing I'll do is return you to the kitchens where you belong,"

Kleaner meekly stepped back and vanished with an audible _crack._

Crawford grunted to himself, then turned to O'Neill.

"Whatever happened here, don't let it happen again,"

O'Neill nodded respectfully, with a tiny smile in the corner of his mouth. The small crowd of the Entrance Hall watched as he ascended the marble staircase with impunity, and left. Crawford walked up to Ethan; Ethan bottled all feeling and faced him like a dead man.

"So you're the Squib," Crawford regarded him no better than he did Kleaner. "You should be more careful,"

* * *

That afternoon, no one was playing chess in the Chess Club. Instead, the seven members were taking turns in a four-player game of Exploding Rummy. Even with his opponents colluding against him, Ethan still managed to win every game he played in.

"Blimey Ethan, you're good at this. Are you sure this is your first time playing?" Lorcan threw his card hand upon the table after Ethan won his third game.

"It's just memory and mathematics. Varun, earlier you drew a jack of clubs. You should have held onto that, since it was clear I was aiming for a jack set,"

Varun grumbled something inaudibly and threw his cards down. There was no need to tally their scores since Ethan had twice the melds of the rest, all of superior value. Ethan gathered all the cards in front of him for shuffling. He shuffled for every game since he was fastest and most thorough.

"Timothy, what did Professor Hagrid tell us to do again for next class?" asked Lysander, who had been watching and occasionally backseat-playing with his brother.

"He told us to read chapter eight section two, on the origin of chimeric creatures,"

"Oh I see. Already read it. Not very detailed, in my opinion," said Lysander.

Ethan paused in gathering up the cards. "Really? I haven't gotten to reading that yet," He was still catching up on several years of reading material. "What do you mean?" He asked curiously.

Lysander quickly assumed his educational voice. "Our textbook says that most chimeric species descended from animals that happened to be born with spellcasting ability. Many of them transfigured their own bodies to imitate other animals; like horses that gave themselves wings, becoming the first pegasus. In the process, they often lose their casting powers, but acquire other magical abilities,"

"Aaand that's the gist of it," Lysander shook his head with disapproval. "The book barely touches on chimeric species created by wizard experimentation, or go into detail on how chimeric combinations manifest new magical abilities, distinct from their component animals,"

"So you think the book's not hard _enough_ ," remarked Scorpius, seated behind Varun. "Don't let Professor Hagrid hear that – he'll actually raise the level of the syllabus,"

"Fascinating," said Ethan, though he appeared to be the only person outside the Scamanders who thought so. "Animals born with spellcasting ability – I take it they are incredibly rare?"

"Yes, spellcasting ability is very rare in animals," answered Lorcan. "Only sapient races like us have reliably passed it down the generations,"

Ethan reached a question he had wondered over for some time. "So wizards evolved from Mugglekind?"

The table perked up upon this turn of conversation.

"Yes, that's the theory that most intelligent people believe," said Lorcan.

"It's a touchy subject," added Lysander. "Some think it's the other way around; that wizards came first, and that Muggles and Squibs are, umm…" He stopped with an uncomfortable look to the Squibs at the table, unable to come up with the right word.

"A genetic mishap?" supplied Ethan.

"Uh, that's one way to put it," said Lysander.

"And then there's those who believe that magic is the gift God gave His chosen people," Lorcan took on a mock dramatic tone. "A fragment of His own power, with which we are to rule over the animals of the earth,"

Ethan supposed that some wizards must find such a tempting notion difficult to resist. The world was full of such assuaging notions. For instance, some humans had a very different interpretation of magic's place in the eyes of God.

"Scorpius, do you if know O'Neill is particularly religious?" Ethan asked.

Scorpius pondered his abrupt question. "I've never seen him go near the school chapel before, so I doubt it. He doesn't seem like the type. I think his father is though. He's chairman of the Board of Governors,"

Typical. That explained why Crawford didn't punish him so much as kissed him goodbye.

Lorcan frowned with disgust. "That O'Neill's like a perfect brew of concentrated prickery. Ethan, if you need help getting back at him, let us know. We'll loose a Questing Beast on him,"

Ethan smiled at the thought. "I appreciate the offer. I'll figure out a way to deal with him eventually,"

"Don't do anything…extreme," spoke up Hugo, seated behind Timothy. He did not face Ethan, instead turning aside with a look of worry.

Just then, there was a knock upon the door and it opened.

* * *

Rose took a deep breath, announced herself with a knock, and entered the clubroom. The club members all looked up with varying degrees of surprise.

"Hey, Rose. What are you doing here?" asked Lorcan amicably.

Rose gave a tiny shrug. "I'm here to attend club," They appeared to be gathered around a just-finished card game. "Is this a club activity?"

Several heads turned to Scorpius, deferring to their club leader. He shrugged as well. "Umm, more or less?"

"Yeah – cards, chess – practically no difference," commented Lysander.

The most surprised was her brother, who only stared blankly without a word. She wasn't angry with Hugo anymore, but was still a little short of forgiving him for meddling with her life again, even bringing in a – an unpredictable outsider. That outsider had a satisfied smile on his face that grated her. He said nothing, only gathered the cards sprayed over the table.

"What are you playing?" asked Rose.

"Exploding Rummy," answered Lorcan. "C'mon, sit down and play a few," he got up from his seat, offering it to her. "This bastard here's been destroying us. Hopefully you can change that. You know him, right? Ethan Chen,"

Rose grudgingly met his gaze. "Yes, we've met,"

Ethan's smile twitched higher. "Nice to meet you again," He then pointed to the two seated on either side of him. "These are my roommates – Timothy and Varun,"

Rose immediately felt a little worried that Ethan's friends would be like him, but on her second glance they seemed much more ordinary. Timothy and Varun gave short awkward waves which she returned similarly. The club turned to silence, waiting for her to take her seat. Feeling the pressure of their waiting, she gingerly sat down across from Ethan. She had come here expecting a quieter afternoon of chess games, restoring contact with Scorpius and the Scamanders.

Timothy and Varun left their seats to rotate with Hugo and Scorpius. Ethan did not leave; Rose assumed that as the last winner, he got to stay. He shuffled the deck with a variety of artful methods, and with such a swift deftness that the cards turned into a mesmerizing blur. The others, too, watched in amazement.

"You play a lot of other card games, Ethan?" asked Lysander.

Ethan shook his head. "Not really. No one to play them with,"

"But you're clearly very comfortable with those cards,"

"It's not as hard as it looks," said Ethan. "You just need to know the technique," He demonstrated to the twins the position of his fingers before a riffle shuffle. They followed his instruction keenly.

"You didn't really answer his question,"

The whole table turned back to Rose. A moment later she realized that she had mumbled aloud.

Ethan put down the deck and eyed her with curious caution. "What do you mean?"

Rose's immediate thought was to take back her words – she was really disinclined to having a conversation with this person again. But a gnawing curiosity gripped her; as little as she knew about Ethan, he did not strike her as a card game enthusiast.

"You…you said you don't play many card games. So where did you learn to shuffle so well?"

Ethan became very still. "So you really want to know?" he asked, his voice low. His solid dark-eyed gaze was a challenge; a challenge to not look away, to stare back and let him extract her intentions from her soul.

"Yes," It was an intensely uncomfortable experience, to maintain eye contact so long with a stranger, but she managed somehow. She tried to do the same to him, to see something in his black-hued eyes; she might have caught a flicker of _something_ , but it was nothing she recognized.

"All right then," Ethan broke off the contest, leaning back in his chair. "I…" He weighed his words carefully. "I practiced magic tricks for a time,"

A wave of confusion sprung from everyone else's face.

"Magic…tricks?" uttered Lorcan. "What do you mean by 'tricks'?"

It took a moment for Rose to break past the misconception and make the right connection.

"You mean Muggle magic?"

Ethan's eyebrows lifted, then he smiled. "Yes,"

"What's 'Muggle magic'?" asked Lysander.

Hugo was the only other person to show recognition of the term. "Oh. Like those things in Uncle George's shop,"

Everyone waited for their explanation. Rose wasn't sure if she could do it justice.

"It's um, something that Muggles do, a kind of…performance art," she said. "To create the illusion that they can do magic,"

Ethan's smile at her grew wider. "Allow me to demonstrate,"

He shuffled the deck a little more, then spread the cards face down in an arc upon the table. "Touch a card, Rose. Any card,"

Rose had never actually witnessed Muggle magic before; she'd only seen stands of card and rope props for sale in her uncle's joke shop. They were never popular compared to their magical joke items, like their Nose-Biting Teacups or Self-Propelling Custard Pies. She thus had as little clue as anyone else on what would happen next.

She reached out and touched a card near the middle. Ethan pulled her card out, brought it to the rightmost end of the arc, and scooped the cards back into a deck in his left hand.

"Let me guess – you chose the queen of hearts,"

He flipped Rose's card, which was on the top of the deck, in his right hand. It was the queen of hearts.

Everyone gawked at the card in shock. Ethan replaced Rose's card over the deck and held up his hand to intercept their questions.

"Hold on, it's not over yet. I'm going to make this card disappear. Don't blink or you'll miss it,"

He took Rose's card again face down in his right hand. Holding it out over the table, he started waving it side to side, gradually gaining speed, making the card a blur. Then, it vanished.

"What the –" exclaimed Varun. Ethan's hand came to a stop and the card was still not there.

"Rose, could you check on your lap?" Ethan asked politely.

Rose looked down and the queen of hearts was staring up at her. Bewildered, she picked it up, and the clubroom's mouths fell open.

"How did you do that?"

"Was that wandless magic?"

"Did you just Teleport that card?"

Ethan answered their exclamations with the same calm he always possessed. "I would like to reiterate right now that I am still a Squib. The trick is ultimately quite simple,"

With a twist of his fingers, another card appeared in his right hand. There was another round of mouths gaping. It was the king of spades. "Rose, this was the card you actually picked,"

Ethan went on to explain the trick in its entirety. When he flipped over Rose's card, he had actually double-lifted – flipping over both hers and the one below it.

"I forced this card on you," said Ethan. "I placed this card on top when I shuffled, and made you believe this was what you picked,"

He then demonstrated step-by-step how he made her card 'vanish' in his hand. While his hand was waving, he flipped the card behind it out of sight, gripping two corners between his fingers.

"It takes a bit of practice to pull this off smoothly," he said as the Scamander attempted to replicate the effect themselves.

"While you were concentrated on my right hand, you probably didn't notice my left bringing the deck to my lap," Ethan continued. "I took the queen of hearts and threw it to Rose's lap from under the table,"

With his explanation done, Rose sat awash in a feeling she'd not had in a long while; that of something new demystified, the bloom of understanding and the fresh trails of thought that it unlocked.

Ethan idly shuffled the deck as he spoke.

"Deception, manipulation, misdirection…that is Muggle magic. Not as good as real magic of course, but they can go a long way to achieving your ends,"

He scooped the top five cards of the deck and revealed them to be a royal flush of spades.

"I'm afraid I'm not very good though, compared to professionals. Small tricks like this are the best I can do,"

"Wait a minute," raised Varun. "Did you cheat in our last game? Have you been cheating this whole time?"

Ethan was completely unfazed by the allegation; he clearly expected it. "It would have been very easy, but no. When you cheat, you cheat no one more than yourself. You'll never grow stronger that way,"

"But I understand your suspicion, so we'll have someone else deal the cards. Timothy," Ethan passed the deck over to Timothy. Timothy reshuffled the deck, a little clumsily, and pitched the players' starting hands. Rose found herself with a pretty good starting hand; she had a three twos and two-thirds of a sequence ready to lay down. In Exploding Rummy, players only had a minute – counting down for each card during their turns – to lay down them down in a meld before they exploded into pieces.

Rose wasn't the sharpest when it came to picking up the moods of others, but it was clear even to her that her brother, Timothy and Varun were tense towards Ethan. Ethan however, behaved like their wary stares didn't exist; he only carried on with that cool imperiousness, as if he were an adult among a lot of preteens.

"Rose, I highly recommend you band together with Hugo and Scorpius to take down Ethan," said Lorcan behind her.

"I think you're over-hyping me, Lorcan," Ethan remarked.

But it was soon very apparent that he was a league above the rest of them. In a few rounds, he already had more melds than the rest of them; he always seemed to find just the card he needed, and ruthlessly denied them the cards they needed, letting them explode in his hand even at the cost of his other cards.

"Ethan has a pair of tens," said Scorpius suddenly. "Hugo, you should hold your ten and dump the rest of your hand. Rose, take my ten, then pass it to Hugo before it's timer runs out,"

Ethan chuckled. "Oh, openly discussing tactics now?"

"It's not cheating to talk during a game," said Scorpius.

Rose wasn't sure if that was exactly true. However, ultimately she still took the ten that Scorpius discarded. A couple of rounds passed, and with Scorpius leading their collaboration, they managed to halt Ethan's progress and catch up to his score. Soon it became time for Rose to discard her ten of diamonds to Hugo.

"This doesn't feel right," Hugo muttered uneasily.

"Go ahead Hugo," said Ethan cordially. "It is the best play,"

"How can it be fun to play with everyone against you?" Hugo replied.

Ethan grinned. "That's when it's most fun to play,"

With every line this person spoke, the stranger he became, almost otherworldly. Rose wondered if there was an end to this strangeness, if this enigma would eventually coalesce into someone understandable. She decided to make a small effort into finding out.

"How did you come to practice Muggle magic?" Rose broached after her turn.

Ethan took a moment to answer.

"Oh, I simply picked it up one day. It interested me, since it had the word 'magic' in it,"

That sounded suspicious to Rose. Not because she couldn't imagine a Squib wanting to try Muggle magic, but because she couldn't imagine _this_ Squib wanting to adopt a pale imitation of true magic. If Ethan had displayed his Muggle magic to any other group, he would have likely been ridiculed. In her uncle's joke shop, only a very small number of Muggle paraphernalia enthusiasts ever paid attention to the Muggle magic stands.

"Did you teach yourself from the Internet?" asked Scorpius.

A look of surprise broke through Ethan's composed exterior.

"You know what the Internet is, right?" Scorpius eyed him expectantly.

Lorcan scratched his chin. "Err, it's like a giant Muggle library anyone can see from one of those computers, right?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Scorpius replied.

"Sorry, I'm not taking NEWTs in Muggle Studies,"

Finally Ethan gave a nod. "Yes. I know what the Internet is,"

Scorpius rested his cards on the table, which automatically paused the game and the timer on everyone's cards. "You said you lived in the city – I take it you had a cable connection there?"

"Optical fibre," stated Ethan. "What about you?"

"My house had a satellite connection – or we did, until the war. The barriers over every town block satellite signals,"

"That sounds expensive," awed Timothy.

"As expected of the noble Malfoy family," said Lysander. "You have luxuries I didn't even know existed,"

"It's not expensive, just difficult to set up," replied Scorpius. "You need a Muggle bank account, and have to speak to a Muggle Internet company –"

"Internet service provider,"

Rose and Ethan spoke at the same time. Rose explained herself to his quizzical look.

"We had a computer in our home as well," They didn't have time to take it with them though, when the Muggle allied military hit their town. She had made use of it more than anyone else in the family.

"Let's get back to playing, shall we?" Ethan appealed to Scorpius, who picked up his cards and resumed the game. However, when it came to Rose's turn, she paused the game again.

"Have you done a lot of performances or public speaking?"

For a brief instant, Ethan gave her a look like one she sometimes got from teachers when she asked too many questions.

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, you seemed really confident, that day, at the Entrance Hall…" The memory of that wild uproar – half the school calling for her and Hugo's exile – it echoed in her ears and stopped her voice.

"Well, I did do some shitty street magic for a while…those were some hard times," Ethan grimaced at some reminiscence of his own. As none of them were familiar with the concept, Ethan explained what 'street magic' entailed.

"You approach people on the street and you perform Muggle magic for them,"

"I'm having a bit of trouble imagining that," said Scorpius. "Doesn't seem like you,"

Ethan smirked. "You're right, it isn't. Some–" He paused, reconsidering his words. "Sometimes you have to build yourself in areas you're not comfortable in, in order to become stronger,"

 _Become stronger_ …it was the kind of thing her uncle Harry would say, like his life was a war.

"Blimey, I wish I'd been there to see Farley's face when you gave him that beat down," said Lorcan. "All we got is someone's recording from the balcony. The rest only pulled out their Rembaubles when Fraser went dragon mode,"

"You have a recording?" asked Timothy hopefully.

"Yeah, we can make you a copy later," said Lysander. "You were going up and down the castle like us, right? Looking for a bloody staff member,"

"Lys and I were having a bloody workout, running all over the damn Staircase," Lorcan whined. "I even tried to enter the house-elf quarters to ask them for help, but someone put a barrier over it. They didn't even know what happened until McGonagall took it down,"

"It was definitely O'Neill who put up that barrier," said Scorpius. "An anti-house-elf barrier is complex stuff,"

"Weren't you scared, Ethan?" asked Lysander. "How do you talk to a huge crowd like that without choking on your tongue?"

After another long consideration, Ethan answered.

"It's not as difficult as you think. I like to look at the crowd…and imagine that they hate my guts. Hate me to the core,"

"Ah, the old – wait, what?"

"That doesn't make any sense," said Rose.

"It only works for me," Ethan said, more to himself than to them.

Rose had to know more. If only she learnt more, maybe this person would become less unnerving, less menacing.

"How long have you practiced Muggle magic? Do you have any other hobbies?"

Ethan suddenly gave her a highly suggestive leering. "I'm afraid I can't tell you _everything_ about me in one sitting,"

After the whole table gave her peculiar looks, she had no choice but to stop questioning him. They continued their game, and eventually Rose overtook Ethan and won. It didn't feel like a fair victory though, so she did not join in the Scamanders' cheering.

"Alas, my winning streak is over. It was fun though," Ethan stood up and left the table.

"Not playing anymore?" asked Scorpius to Ethan's back.

"Quitting after one loss?" said Lorcan in good jest.

"I want to give the rest of you a chance to win for once," returned Ethan. He then looked over his shoulder to Rose.

"Rose, how about a chess game? We can pick up where we left off last time," He indicated to a table by the far end of the clubroom.

Slowly Rose got up, waded through the puzzled looks of the Exploding Rummy table, and sat across from Ethan behind a chess set. Ethan was behind the white pieces, but his arms were rested on his armrests with no indication of plans to move.

"So, did you clear the air with Scorpius?"

"Yes," Though she at first didn't feel like telling him so, she found no reason to keep it from him.

"Good. That ought to make Hugo happy. And everyone else, too; the Chess Club's a lot brighter with a girl in it,"

Rose focused on the things she wanted to say to him. "The things you said…most of it was false…but it helped me realize where I was wrong. Was this all according to your plan?" She asked softly.

"Oh, this plan could have taken many different paths, depending on your level of maturity. I was prepared to…escalate the situation if you didn't show up at the library,"

She was truly facing someone of a unique mind. She had no comparison for his behaviour or way of thinking. "I see,"

"You're welcome,"

"I wasn't thanking you," she reacted in repulsion.

Scorpius came over from the Exploding Rummy table and sat down between them.

Ethan gave him an offhanded dissatisfied look. "It's barely been a minute, Scorpius. If you want to pretend you don't care, you should at least wait a little longer,"

Scorpius disregarded his comment. "It looks like you haven't started playing yet,"

"No. Actually I have something to discuss with you,"

"Really?" said Scorpius. Rose could hear the both of them enter guarded tones.

"It's about Iris Lascelles," Ethan began. "Please tell me you're not completely blind to what's going on around you,"

Scorpius's expression furrowed. "I'm not blind. I know that Iris…that Iris fancies me,"

Rose felt a short wave of embarrassment from having such matters discussed, but Ethan apparently did not feel the same.

"Well, have you shot her down then?"

"Not as direct as you would have done, but…she knows I can't return her feelings,"

Ethan made an impatient snort. "And you're still on friendly terms, how nice. Breaking news for you – she hasn't given up, and she'd turn Rose into a troll if it'll make you notice her. Do you know that she's bullying Rose every chance she gets?"

Scorpius seemed to shrink from her presence. "I know. She started the rumours between you and her,"

Rose suspected that he didn't know everything though. Most of Iris's harassment were short comments thrown in passing. Iris also took great care never to do such things within Scorpius's sight.

"How long has this been going on?" Ethan directed at Rose.

Rose almost felt like the pair of them were being scolded. "Um, only recently. Since, um…"

"Since Scorpius confessed to you," Ethan finished. Ethan glared back at Scorpius. "Have you confronted Lascelles on this?"

"In a way,"

"What?" Ethan's voice rose harshly. "What did you do? Drop a hint or two, ask nicely with some subtle wordplay?" Scorpius's silence confirmed it for him. "Do you _have_ a backbone?"

"She's not a bad person, you know. Not as bad as you think," Scorpius said softly.

"I don't really care. You better solve this problem soon, or I'm going to solve it for you,"

Scorpius fell silent, his head sunk low. Ethan took a moment of the silence to ponder something.

"In the meantime – Rose, how are you coping against Lascelles and O'Neill?"

If anyone else had asked that question, she would have taken it as a note of concern. But from this person, she didn't know what to think.

"I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"You don't seem to be fine. You were completely helpless against Lascelles when she hounded you about me,"

At the time, Rose was reeling from the things Ethan had said to her, but even if she weren't, she probably would not have fared well against Iris anyway. "What was I supposed to say?"

"It's not so much what you say, but how you say it. Allow me to offer you some advice,"

Ethan's voice lost some of its hard edge, but gained in solemnity.

"People have probably told you to ignore them; don't give them a response, don't pay them the respect of occupying your thoughts. But that's not so easy, is it? Nothing is impervious, and a thousand little cuts will eventually chip you down. There is another way. Don't ignore their words, don't turn away,"

Ethan raised a hand and tightened his fist. "Take their hate and absorb it, turn it into your strength. Embrace their hatred, relish the effect you have on them. Draw strength in knowing that the more they oppose you, the more right you must be,"

Such an attitude…it went against every moral lesson she'd learnt since young. Hate was a poison…is it even possible to turn it into strength? And yet she turned it over in her mind…and it started to make sense.

"I don't think I have the stomach for that," she uttered meekly.

"No one starts out with an iron gut," said Ethan. "But you will have to build one, if you want to do more than just survive,"

"It's…it's easy for you to say," Rose looked into him earnestly. "But you don't know what it's like, being hated by half the school,"

"Half?" Ethan gave a tiny smile, returning her gaze. "You're right – I don't know what that's like,"

* * *

The Great Hall was bustling with noise as usual at lunch time. Ethan bit into his sandwich as he observed clumps of chatting students stroll through its great double doors. The snippets of conversation he overheard were just the usual inanities of school life; gossip, complaints and pleas for attention. At least talk about Rose seemed to have died down, which was what he was listening for.

"Timothy, if you're finished, can I have your _Daily Prophet_?" He had to raise his voice over the general din of the Hall, since Timothy and all the other Squibs gave Ethan a wide berth.

Timothy, seated closest but three feet away on the opposite side of the table, nodded and slid the newspaper over to him.

"Thank you," said Ethan. Varun beside Timothy made a disgruntled expression.

The front page reported that the Muggle British government were making appeals to the country's Veela and house-elf communities, but with no indication of success. The Veela remained reluctant to risk their small numbers against reprisal from either side, and the house-elves were bound by ancient magic to serve the will of wizards.

Ethan flipped through the pages, scanning the headlines – some skirmishes and bombings across the world, but currently a lull in the fighting in the U.K. The very last article of the paper grabbed his attention:

 _Hogwarts Headmistress under question for supporting Order of the Phoenix_

 _CAELORUM – At a parliamentary investigative hearing last afternoon, Hogwarts Headmistress Minerva McGonagall defended herself against backlash for an article she wrote for the Quibbler last Friday, beckoning support for the Order of Phoenix, and suggesting that the Ministry subject itself to a Muggle-controlled military tribunal._

 _The investigative hearing was conducted by the Wizengamot Education Committee, chaired by Member of the Wizengamot (MWG) Iain Northwright, to have Headmistress McGonagall answer claims of stepping beyond her bounds as custodian of Hogwarts by publicizing political opinions that threaten to undercut the sanctity of Britain's wizarding school._

 _Headmistress McGonagall defended her writing of the article by stating she was 'free to express her opinions' via outside publications and that they had 'no bearing on the way [she] ran the school'._

 _Chairman of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, Diarmuid O'Neill, who petitioned for the investigative hearing, provided testimony that the Headmistress is abusing her public service position to unduly impose her personal agenda on both students and the wizarding public._

' _The Headmistress's sole duty is to serve the needs of its students. For her to make such outrageous comments is out of line and irresponsible and not what we need at this time,'_

The rest of the article was progressively less informative. Naturally, there were no details on the content of McGonagall's article, or even a mention of the Order's activities.

 _Sacrificing the major leaders of the Ministry to a war trial? Interesting,_ Ethan mused. The official reason for the war was the accusation of the Ministry using mental magic to manipulate the British government. Holding a tribunal was certainly a way to sate the bloodlust of the Muggle public – provided that it worked, sacrificing some leaders was preferable to having the whole Ministry taken over from an unconditional surrender. _Don't know that it'll be enough though._ Ultimately, it depended on the goals of the British government, and Ethan couldn't say he knew that for certain.

The world is falling apart outside, and here these students were trading gossip, not a care in the that he would do anything about the war if he were free. Before he was captured by Harry Potter, he did go prodding at the CIA, and exposed a little truth to the public, but that was for his own reasons. However, nine months as a slave had weathered his resolve for vengeance, to a point where he was prepared to just forget about it. As messed up and doomed as the world currently was, did any effort from him matter anything anymore?

"Ethan," Timothy sidled closer to speak to him. "I'm sorry about the other day. It was unreasonable of us,"

Ethan lowered the paper and put his thoughts on the article on hold – he faced Timothy to address the matter at hand. "It was an honest mistake. You assumed I knew Lily Potter better than I did,"

"You _could_ talk to her if you wanted to," grumbled Varun. "But you just don't care about anything,"

"Varun, please," Timothy whispered.

"Maybe you're right," said Ethan imperturbably. "But why should I? Go on, give me a reason,"

Varun fell speechless and Timothy froze, not knowing how to continue. Just then, someone stormed through the Hall doors and came straight up to Ethan.

"You…you told him," Iris Lascelles was shaking, her grey eyes wide and slightly red. In one hand she clutched several sheets of paper – not parchment, but white printer paper.

Ethan was expecting something like this, but did not think Iris would confront him in front of so many others. She was a bundle of frayed nerves, intensely aware of the many eyes now turned on her but trying hard to ignore them. She was clearly not thinking prudently in her distraught state.

"I didn't tell 'him' anything he didn't already know. I only suggested that he speak to you about his concerns," The Squibs of the Squib table looked on in thorough confusion.

"You said you wouldn't tell him!" Her raspy voice rose a pitch shriller, and started to attract attention from passing students and the other tables.

That shaking distress…the eyes reddened by tears…she was reminding him more and more of _her._ She too confronted him much like this, after he had destroyed her life, and started his own descent into misery.

Ethan brought his voice deeper in response to Iris's shrillness. "This is punishment for yesterday. You didn't believe I could hurt you. Now you know that I have his ear. Test me again and I will make things a lot worse,"

Iris stared at him fearfully, at last recognizing the monster she was beholding. Ethan would have preferred not to do this in front of half the school, but it was she who made the choice.

Ethan stood up. "Relax, Lascelles. You haven't lost anything yet. I can help you regain favour with him, even more than you had before. But you have to listen to what I say,"

At first Iris appeared to calm down, caught upon a sliver of hope. But then something occurred in her – a realization, and a mustering of resolve.

"You…I know what you are," Her voice hardened. "You're a Muggle!"

It was like someone had clapped Ethan in the ears; if the Hall was murmuring or deathly silent, he couldn't tell, as his brain had stopped caring to notice. It narrowed entirely down to the words Iris spoke, and how to deny them.

"Where did this come from?" Ethan spoke.

Iris breathed heavily. "I overheard…he suspected you, so I checked. I asked my house-elf to look at the names of all wizarding families in the U.S.,"

She shook the papers she clutched in front of his face. Printed on it were a list of names, organized by family, followed by columns of personal information such as date of birth and address.

Recognition struck him like a gust of wind. "How did you get that?"

The papers rustled in her grasp. "My father's in the Ministry…he has a computer in his office…it was on the Internet,"

After MACUSA surrendered, the U.S. government must have acquired the names and personal details of everyone in their family register. They handed the information to local police forces to aid in locating wizards hiding in human territory. From there, it leaked online. Ethan knew this because several months ago he downloaded the same data and handed it to one of Lowther's Spooks.

"Squibs are supposed to be registered as well. But your name's not here, and neither are your parents," Iris was near breathless. "How do you explain that?"

"This…this is ridiculous," Where did he go wrong? How could he have been so blindsided? It came so suddenly…her _house-elf_ – he should have been more cautious, should have known someone might have access to the Internet –

"What's more, there's tons of articles on you," In her trembling hands, she shuffled the papers to a printout of a news article. "You're some kind of 'hacker' criminal,"

 _So she found that out, too._ Ethan thought. He almost snorted from a moment of amusement. Even in a whole other world where people barely knew what the Internet was, he could never escape his past.

"What's going on here?" Crawford's growling figure sauntered beside Iris.

"He's a Muggle," She handed him the papers in her hand.

Ethan searched his options for something – anything – that could help him, but a far-off feeling loomed that there was little words could avail him. He looked back at the High Table; McGonagall was nowhere to be seen…and she always had lunch at this time without fail.

"That's not proof," Ethan spoke, but his voice was not as strong as it should be. "She could have deleted my name and that of my family,"

Crawford's irritated gaze swung between him and the papers, then at the High Table. He scowled.

"Stay here, boy," Crawford turned and Disapparated.

Iris's nervousness appeared to simmer, to be overtaken by a rising sense of triumph.

"I already called the Ministry earlier. Soon the police will come to take you away,"

Ethan had a sense that was the case. So it didn't matter if he managed to reject Iris's accusation. Once the police take him into questioning, it will be all over. The end of his little vacation.

"You…you have made a terrible mistake," Ethan muttered darkly.

Iris cracked a triumphant smirk at him. "I knew you were something else…you're some kind of Muggle spy, aren't you? Is that why you were talking to Rose? Why you protected her?"

Ethan snorted derisively. "If I were a spy, I would be the worst spy in the world right now. Is that all that comes to your petty mind?"

Iris's smile contorted into confusion. "Then…why did you do so much for her? Even helping her with Sc –" She froze, remembering she didn't want to expose her feelings for him.

A dark, sickening anger boiled inside him, building since he entered this accursed castle, pressing on the walls of his chest. And there was just no more reason to hold it down.

"That's it?" He spat with contempt. " _That's_ what you care about? You are _so close-minded_ –" He stepped onto and across the dining table. Iris backed away just before he collided into her. "Do you even realize what you've just done?"

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement will question him. They will read his mind; Lowther will realize that Harry Potter altered his memories and go after him. If Ethan wasn't killed outright, he will go back to being a mind-controlled slave, working to win the war against his own kind.

Iris stood paralyzed, unable to back away further as Ethan drew close enough to see the quivering in her eyes.

"You think people don't really know what kind of person you are?" His voice out spewed forth so coarse and caustic that he stung his own throat. "You do everything you can to destroy Rose, then you turn around and put your fake charming exterior. You may fool some people, but not anyone who matters,"

His voice erupted loud, loud enough to reach the corners of the Hall in its transfixed silence. Unbridled rage exploded from every word.

"You're jealous of Rose. Of course you are. She doesn't make half the effort you do to schmooze others and she's still more popular than you. People like her because she is smart, dependable, level-headed, and holds herself and others to a high standard of integrity. Actual qualities, not like the fake persona you show your so-called friends,"

"You're weak and worthless. And you hate yourself for it. So you try to offload that hate onto others…people like you are what's wrong with this world. You can't compete with Rose at all, which is why you tried to tarnish her reputation by associating her with me. But no matter how far you bring others down, it will never change who _you_ are,"

"And you," He seethed with bared, gritted teeth. "Are a petty, jealous, vindictive, underhanded, two-faced, attention-seeking… _witch_ ,"

His ruthless glare stabbed into her eyes, her soft lightless eyes. "That is why Scorpius doesn't like you. That is why he will never like you. And that is why no one will ever, truly like you,"

Iris staggered back in tiny steps. Her face wrinkled and her eyes welled with tears. She held herself just a moment longer – then fell apart. Her hands rose to cover her mouth and she sunk to her knees. The heavy silence of the Hall was softly punctured by her broken, heaving sobs.

A thick vileness clogged in Ethan's chest. A viscid sludge no amount of rageful venting could remove. All his hate and anger would stay with him to the end of his days, his only consolation for the rest of his weak, worthless existence.

He heard some stirring behind him, from one of the House tables. He caught a flash of red light over his shoulder and then suddenly, he was unconscious.


	11. Chapter 11 - Secrets

Chapter 11 – Secrets

Harry re-entered the torture chamber, invisible via his Invisibility Cloak. With a firm thought, he commanded the Cloak to snake into his robe pocket, turning visible. He closed the room's thick adamantine door, lit the room's lantern and stepped before the single wooden chair in the centre.

Harry reached into his robe pocket and pulled out an unconscious ferret. He tossed the ferret upon the chair. It slowly began to untransfigure back into a man, approximately in his thirties. As his body swelled, Harry fitted his growing limbs in the chair's cold iron shackles.

" _Rennervate,"_ He cast upon the fully reverted man. Moments later, his head rolled up with his eyes faintly open.

"This place look familiar to you?" asked Harry.

Obliviator Taylor Elliot groaned from the bleariness of being Stunned and the body ache of personal transfiguration. "What…what's going on?"

"You know why you're here?"

Elliot took in his surroundings and fear slowly seeped through the grogginess. "No,"

" _Imperio,"_

Elliot shuddered in resistance, his limbs rattling against his shackles. But even an Obliviator, a professional in mental magic, was soon overwhelmed by the Elder Wand.

"Were you the one who dominated me to write those conspiracy letters and erased my memory of it?"

Elliot, whose expression had turned blank and tranquil, attempted to speak, but his throat seized and began to shake with strain.

"Contract binding. So that's a yes," Harry released the Obliviator from the Imperius Curse. Elliot gasped for breath.

"You have two choices," said Harry. "You can voluntarily go destroy the contract binding you, with me waiting nearby, or we can put this room to use,"

Harry reached a hand out to a table of implements at the side of the room, and it dragged itself up beside him. He picked up a cold iron spike, thin as a wand and long as a forearm, and tapped its point upon Elliot's forehead.

In cases where a prisoner's secrets were withheld by a Memory Charm, Fidelius Charm, magical contract or other magical means, Ministry interrogators used to use electricity, cold iron or the Cruciatus Curse to break down the enchantment binding their brains. Unfortunately, these methods tended to be inconsistent; there was always a sizable risk of the sought information being destroyed or corrupted from brain damage. The prisoner was also invariably rendered useless after application.

"You…you wouldn't," he reared his head back from the spike, only to hit the base of the metal cap hanging over him.

"The old me? Maybe not," said Harry. "But this person that you've brainwashed? I don't know what he's capable of,"

"I-I di –" His voice seized up again and his whole body convulsed in pain.

Harry believed he was done with the intimidation stage; it was time to dial it down a little. He put the cold iron spike away from Elliot's head and softened his tone.

"You're an Obliviator – you've been on the other side of this conversation before, so you know how this works. You knew this was coming eventually. Your career, your family life – it's all over now. You are alone now. And whoever it is you're working for, they're not going to help you either. To them, you are a misstep, a mess that probably needs to be cleaned up in the future. Do you understand?"

Elliot nodded, though it appeared closer to any involuntary jitter of the head.

"Right now, the only person who can give you some semblance of life back, is me. So I'm asking for your cooperation,"

The Obliviator considered his lot quietly, then muttered, "Okay,"

"Good," Harry returned the cold iron spike in his hand to the table. "You will go to wherever the contract binding you is, and destroy it. I won't track or follow you, but I _will_ find you if you try to escape,"

There was a reason Harry couldn't follow the Obliviator; the standard terms of secrecy contracts forbid the promisor from revealing the location of the contract – even the thought of allowing someone to track them would activate the binding. Dominating someone to destroy the contract did not work either; the promisor is bound from destroying the contract while under any other mental enchantments.

Harry moved forward to remove Elliot's shackles, but the Obliviator shook his head. "I can't," Harry stepped backward.

"Why not?"

"I-It's –" Elliot seized, managing only choked stutters from his mouth. Harry considered the possible predicaments.

"You can't reach it?" Harry supposed. There was no perceptible change to Elliot's gurgling. Harry referred to his past experiences concerning magical contracts. "It's in Gringotts, isn't it?" More gurgles in response. Gringotts was currently surrounded by Muggle armed forces, and its vaults were nigh impossible to break into in the first place.

Harry sighed. Now came the more time-consuming and arguably more painful method of extracting information from one under magical binding. He conjured a simple wooden chair behind himself and sat down. He flicked his wand and the torture chair's metal cap lowered upon Elliot's head.

"I'm going to run a moderate electric current through your body. It will help you fight the contract binding. I will ask you questions and you will try your best to answer. Gurgle for yes, spasm for no,"

Harry flipped a switch atop the metal cap. Elliot's whole body shook harder than before; the pitch of his desperate noises raised a notch and his eyes threatened to explode from their sockets. Such was the reason why the Ministry advised all criminals against using magical means to keep their secrets – they only served to make things more painful when they were caught.

"Does your contract have a void clause?"

Elliot's gurgling quieted down to a murmur while his body continued to thrash. That actually indicated a 'yes', since the contract binding forbid its promisor from answering Harry's question. If the binding acted to shut down his throat while leaving his body to convulse, that was a yes. If the binding constricted his body while allowing him to make strained utterances, that was a no.

"Is it possible for you to activate the clause?" Continued spasms with restrained gurgles.

Harry Summoned something from another table from the other side of the room. It was a spelling board: a large, rectangular board featuring the alphabet and numerals. "What is the clause?"

Harry held the board up to Elliot and slowly dragged his wand over each alphabet in turn, watching for a signal. Soon the Obliviator's sounds seized again.

"D," Harry returned to the start of the board and began again. Elliot started to make little sound at every letter; he had caught on to Harry's method of communication, which made things more complicated: if he knew he was supposed to display the opposite signal, the binding would prevent him from doing so, in which case the signals would reverse back. If he had any Veritaserum on hand, he wouldn't have this problem, but since he didn't, Harry had to keep a watch for whenever the signals reversed.

"…C…M…Was that a gurgle or a spasm? A…F. You're giving me gibberish. We're starting over,"

Eventually Elliot managed to not think too hard about his communication – the writhing pain of electric shock helped. "D…A…N…G…E…R."

Danger. A somewhat common void clause for contract promisors who still valued their own life over whatever secrets they were keeping, though somewhat defeating the purpose of the contract.

Harry shut down the electric current and lifted the metal cap. The smell of ozone and burnt hair wafted over him. As Elliot wheezed feebly, Harry picked up the cold iron spike from the table beside him. Before Elliot could even begin to panic, Harry plunged the spike into his chest, past his ribs and through his right lung.

The contract will only lift once the promisor was at the edge of death. As blood gushed down Elliot's shirt and he heaved in terror, Harry extracted a host of life-preserving potions and drugs from a pouch in his potion belt. He laid them out in order of administration and prepared them in multiple syringes.

Elliot's face was white as paper and he had stopped moving. Harry pulled out the cold iron spike, tilted the Obliviator's head back and injected the first drug straight into his carotid artery. Elliot screamed back to life – though it was more of a rasp since one of his lungs was punctured. As he struggled, Harry held his head down and injected the second and third drug. The blood vessels of Elliot's face pulsed and grew warm under Harry's palm. Harry then injected, refilled, and injected again several doses of Healing Potion to the wound in his chest – the hole began to close. The Obliviator was only able to survive such a high immediate dosage due to one of the drugs Harry injected earlier. Before the wound healed completely, Harry used a Siphoning Spell to extract blood and air from the lungs and chest cavity – the blood floated in a wiry stream to the floor behind him. Finally, Harry unlocked the shackles over Elliot's arms and pressed a Blood-Replenishing Potion in his palm.

"Drink,"

After taking a minute to recover himself, Elliot shakily brought the potion to his lips.

"This…this is what you Aurors do?" He wheezed after finishing the potion.

"They don't call this the darkest job in the world for nothing," Harry sat back down on his chair. "I'm grateful for you going through all that in one sitting. Now tell me everything, starting with: Who do you work for?"

Elliot's hand reached for the hole in his shirt felt over where the cold iron spike had pierced him. "The Confederation. I think,"

"You think?"

"They just sent us a letter, telling us what to do,"

Harry quietly activated his Legilimency abilities; if Elliot lied or withheld information, he would sense it. He was hoping Elliot would not make him have to employ truth serums. He wandered through the murky mists of Elliot's mind and extracted a letter; the letter instructed in short, concise terms how to trap Harry Potter, Aminta Fane and Balthazar Cadogan, and dominate them.

"And you just followed the letter?"

"No," Elliot shook his head, but only slightly, as he most likely had a splitting headache. "We met with a Confederation delegate – uh, Acton Rutledge. Secretary of Defense of MACUSA. He convinced us to help him,"

Harry had met Rutledge before. Boisterous, generous, and extremely patriotic. "Who is 'us'?"

Elliot hesitated, then continued. "Me and two other Obliviators. Hagan Dayne and Sherwin Crafter. We all saw him individually, during our annual leave,"

Harry would have to arrange a meeting with those two other Obliviators as well. "What did Rutledge say?"

"He…he wanted our help. To take back our world from the Muggles," A sudden anger surged in Elliot, almost like a spontaneous reaction. "They burned us! Drowned us! Drove us into hiding! It's time we paid them back!"

With Legilimency, Harry skimmed through a ream of corroborating memories – of the Obliviators meeting Rutledge in a restaurant, of Rutledge saying the exact hateful lines as Elliot just did.

"Where did you get mithril cloaks?" Harry pressed on.

"Borrowed from the Cabal," Elliot calmed down as suddenly as he had heated up.

"What did he want you to do?"

"To bring the British Ministry into the war. We…we lured you into this room with a memo claiming that the Spooks were interrogating a high-rank Cabal member,"

His past self was careless; he relied too much on his Foe-Watch to warn him of danger – if only he had known the dungeons more thoroughly, he would have realized he was opening a door to a blind zone.

"We dominated you as you opened the door and ordered you to write a Blood-Sigiled letter showing that you and the entire Confederation were involved in plans to turn Muggle countries against each other,"

The splatters of Harry's blood came from when he cut his own hand to sign his Blood Sigil. However, the splatters were away from the torture chair, which meant at some point Harry escaped.

"But it didn't go perfectly?"

"No," Elliot cracked a frown. "We ordered you to remove all of your equipment – in case you broke out of the Imperius Curse and attacked us. Dayne tried to pick up your potion belt, and one of its Crystal Lightnings exploded when he touched it. Dayne was knocked out, and he was the one dominating you; you got up and punched out Crafter. You knocked me down before and almost stole my wand – but I had on a Sticking Charm. You stabbed me several times with the quill you were writing with and then I Stunned you. We got you back under _Imperius_ and had you finish the letter,"

"You didn't try to hold me for longer?"

"No – you were already breaking _Imperius_ Curse again by the time the letters were done. After that, we just scrubbed the room and sent you back to your office. Your Occlumency was too strong even for all of us,"

If Harry was put under _Imperius_ , his daily required enchantment screening would have picked it up the next day. Now came the question Harry was burning to ask. "What else did you do to me?"

"Nothing,"

"No brainwashing? No personality rewriting?" Harry's voice rose darkly.

"No, I swear!" Harry could hear the crack of a defensive lie in his tone.

" _Legilimens!"_

The Elder Wand's power broke through the Obliviator's half-hearted Occlumency; Harry summoned the information he needed and it emerged to him from the mists: Elliot was telling the truth. They did not conduct any brainwashing: only a Memory-Wipe Spell for his memories from before he received the memo to after they let him go. They were not ordered to do so, and in any case had not the time or confidence to perform something as involved as personality rewriting.

If they had the time or means to detain him for a few days, they might have been able to probe his mind for secrets – valuable information they could use as slander or blackmail, or sell to an interested party. However, they did not, which was very fortunate; as Head of the Auror Office, Harry was naturally in possession of many scandalous secrets implicating not just himself, but many in the Ministry.

"Don't lie to me again," warned Harry. "What did you do next?"

"After we let you go, we got Cadogan and Fane the same way, made them write similar letters. Three days later, we then met with Muggle agents from MI7 at different locations. We handed them the letters and then brainwashed them with false memories of intercepting the letters from owls,"

Harry pressed the tip of his wand to Elliot's head. His Legilimency summoned a rush of Elliot's memories – Cadogan and Fane entering two different chambers, dominated and commanded the same way, only with less complication. He would have to look for those chambers later and search for any corroborating evidence. As Harry pulled his wand away, a thread of silvery light pulled from Elliot's forehead – Harry stowed the solidified memory into a vial for later reviewing.

"After that?"

"Nothing. After we reported our success, the letters told us to lay low until we were needed again. We received regular messages to keep doing that, but they stopped after the TAFC went down,"

So they lost contact after communication by owl or Floo was no longer possible. The 'Rutledge' the Obliviators met with may have been a Polyjuice disguise or another form of illusion. In Harry's line of work, very little information was trustworthy.

"Did you have anything to do with the domination-suicide of the Muggle Prime Minister and his aides?" That was another mystery that needed to be solved before there could be peace.

"No – I don't know anything about that, I swear,"

Harry sat back and digested the totality of information he had received. The Head Auror, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and the Minister for Magic…all cornered and compromised within the Ministry itself, and gone unnoticed for over a year. It was completely inexcusable, and completely his fault. Even if it wasn't his jurisdiction, he should have realized; there were too many holes in their security and the blind zone torture chambers should have been destroyed long ago…when this was all over he would have to address these issues, but right now he had to wrap up with Elliot.

"So you did this to help wizardkind," said Harry evenly. "To help us defeat and rule over the Muggles?"

"Yes," answered Elliot without a second's doubt. "It is our rightful place,"

"There's one problem though," said Harry. "Assuming certain Ministries in the Confederation _are_ behind this…why reveal the conspiracy to the Muggles when they could have continued dominating them secretly?"

Elliot pondered painfully through his headache. "Rutledge…Rutledge said that the Muggles discovered the plot on their own. Their governments knew about magic all along; Rutledge told us about groups like MI7, from the U.S., China, France, Russia – he said they had discovered us, and it was only a matter of time before they attacked,"

That much was true, according to the e-mail Hermione had sent him about the details of her meeting with MI7's leader. But the United Nations Council of Magical Affairs did not reveal their knowledge of the compromised leaders to the Confederation until after the British Ministry's 'conspiracy letters' were intercepted. This did not bode well – whoever was behind all this had a vast network of undercover agents in multiple Muggle countermagic agencies.

"If that's true," Harry responded to Elliot. "Don't you think the better course of action for the Confederation would have been to deny the bulk of the evidence, throw some scapegoats to the Muggles and plead for peace?"

Elliot made a noncommittal shrug. "I don't know,"

"The Muggles had not even begun to weaken each other – anyone can tell it was not yet time to attack them," said Harry. Elliot began to grind his teeth at the effort of thinking.

"But instead even attempting peace, whoever's behind all this had the Muggles they dominated set to kill themselves if they were identified, which led us straight to war,"

"I…I don't understand…"

"This isn't a plan for wizard governments to conquer the Muggles – this is a plan for both of us to destroy each other. Someone else wants to rule over what's left,"

Suddenly Elliot groaned in great pain, grasping the sides of his head. He swung his whole upper body wildly from side to side, testing the bolts that secured his chair to the floor.

"How did I not see that…doesn't…matter…Muggles…deserve it…argh…"

Harry recognized the symptoms afflicting him. "How long have you believed in wizard supremacy?"

"Since…argh…can't remember…"

Elliot screamed at the top of his lungs – then, without warning he lunged for the table beside Harry, and grabbed a cold iron spike. Elliot grasped the spike in both hands, its point facing himself, and swung his head down on it.

Elliot was pushed into the back of his chair – the cold iron spike in his hands launched into the air and clattered on the floor behind Harry. Harry's thoughtcast telekinetic blast also knocked over the table beside him scattered all its torture tools.

" _Telekinesis,"_

Elliot's arms landed back in his chair's armrests and its shackles closed back over his arms. He struggled fruitlessly for several seconds, then seemed to regain awareness of himself and settled down.

"You've been brainwashed, Elliot. And like everyone else they compromised, you have a suicide command that triggers when you recognize that fact,"

It would seem that the Obliviators themselves were brainwashed to do what the brainwashers couldn't, as they didn't have a more secure way to lure top Ministry officials into a blind zone.

"Do you have a Pensieve?" Harry asked.

A Pensieve was a magical artefact with the ability to store one's memories. High-profile individuals and men in dangerous lines of work regularly updated their Pensieves with memories and occasionally reviewed them for inconsistencies.

Elliot hung his head low. "…I did, but I sold it…to pay off a debt, I think,"

"A desire to empty or sell your Pensieve is one of the signs that you've been compromised,"

"I know, I know…" Elliot whined softly. "I just…didn't think it would happen to me,"

There was some hope for Elliot to recover his original self, but only a feeble one. The soul is fundamentally resistant to mental alteration, which is how even Muggles can resist the Imperius Curse. Most brainwashed individuals who underwent severe personality rewriting will suffer psychological breakdowns as their soul rejects the unnatural changes made to it, but only in rare cases does the soul ever manage to reverse those effects.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" asked Harry. Elliot shook his head, and Harry sensed his honesty.

"Then I guess we're done here," said Harry impassively.

Elliot leaned low in his chair, exhausted in many different ways. "…Are you going to arrest me?" he asked dully.

"No, not yet," replied Harry. "I can't let whoever's behind this catch wind of what I'm doing. I also can't allow you to do that,"

Obliviators went for regular enchantment screenings, so if Harry used a Memory Charm, it would be quickly discovered. Memory-wiping was not an option either, since Harry had no experience with that level of mental magic.

Harry reached into a robe pocket and pulled out a scroll of parchment: a standard secrecy contract, with all the usual stipulations and loophole-covering clauses. It was not easy to acquire these contracts anymore, since they could only be crafted by skilled goblin scribes. Harry, fortunately, had stocked a few scrolls of incomplete magical contracts for an occasion such as this. Contract enchantments were not necessarily illegal, so without being able to detect the details of the contract, it should not trigger any alerts at Elliot's enchantment screenings.

Harry levitated the knocked-over table before him and opened the scroll upon it. With quill and ink, he filled in the secrets he would bind Elliot to keep – everything they had discussed in this room, and the fact that Harry had approached him and his co-conspirators. He also added a term that forbid the Obliviator from killing himself, which was not fool proof, but would help. Once done, he pushed the table to Elliot and unlocked his shackles again.

"Read it and sign,"

Elliot slowly read through the scroll, more out of sheer exhaustion than cautiousness. Then he picked up Harry's quill and signed – his signature briefly flashed white, burning itself into the parchment. Harry collected the scroll.

"I'll be back for you. For now, I'll let you out of here,"

Harry promptly Stunned Elliot and transfigured his unconscious body into a ferret. Harry cleaned up the torture chamber with telekinesis and a cleaning spell, pocketed the ferret and donned his Invisibility Cloak before finally leaving the room. The torch-lit corridor outside was not significantly brighter, but it was enough to sting his eyes.

Harry checked his pocket watch; he had skipped lunch to corner Elliot and had only minutes left before being required at another cabinet meeting. Following that, he had to review matters of budget and procuring equipment, then hear reports from his Auror division chiefs. At night, he would join one of his special task forces in destroying several British oil platforms in the North Sea.

Whenever he could find the time, he would have to repeat the whole capture and interrogation process with two other Obliviators. Harry sighed. Just another day at work.

* * *

Civitas Caelorum – simply referred to as Caelorum – was Britain's largest and most bustling magickind city. It was hardly comparable in size to a Muggle city – its population only about scratched seven hundred – but it was easily equal in beauty and culture to London's finest districts. Wizards made the majority, with enclaves of goblins, veela and even non-indentured house-elves. Since the war though, the goblins and veela have moved out, reducing the city's vibrancy. Despite that, Caelorum was still home to some of the country's wealthiest wizard residents and the finest in wizarding boutiques and restaurants.

The Ministry of Magic headquarters was once located underground of Whitehall, London. But after the war began, the whole complex was teleported – no small feat – within the mountain of Caelorum. This meant that the city was now the political capital of the Wizard State of the United Kingdom, and that the High Street was rife with politicians around lunch and dinner time. Ginny was having lunch with one of them right now.

"– very important will be those constituencies that have been occupied by the Muggles. I'd say marginal seats there are inclined to swing in our favour. If Talbot will reach out to them," said Lord Walter Minchum, Member of the Wizenhoose, the lower house of Parliament in the Ministry of Magic.

"So you think the United Wizards Party will try a centrist strategy?" said Ginny. She was halfway through her plate of Baked Golden Snidgets – small, ball-shaped birds stuffed and baked in a crispy golden coating. Despite the name, the dish was actually made with YellowSnidgets, since Golden Snidgets were an endangered species. Lord Minchum was dining on a Nogtail steak – a grey-black, leathery meat that nonetheless oozed with a rich, gamey flavour. Nogtails, which resembled black piglets with long legs, were farm pests that often spooked Muggle farmers with the idea that there was a giant spider-legged rat running about.

"I would, but Talbot is the face of the party now, and we have to follow his lead. I've spoken to the campaign team – Talbot will dig his heels in and appeal to his core voters in the UWP," Lord Minchum shook his head and sawed at his steak. The wispy white hairs of his sparse comb over wobbled as he did so.

"Do you think his strategy will reflect his policies if he takes office?" Ginny cut a Snidget in half and bit into it.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," said Lord Minchum. "Our party's been growing more and more partisan since Fudge and Scrimegour. If I weren't already branded a moderate, I'd be taking a huge risk right now, speaking to you in plain view,"

"I'll just write that you were admonishing my subversive, anti-government agenda," said Ginny.

Lord Minchum chortled. "Still, this particular conversation is off-the-record, yes?"

Ginny nodded. "Of course; the election's still a year away, it's too early to be speculating,"

When Ginny was a sports journalist, being the senior Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet, her biggest challenge was finding something worth writing about, trying not to hit the bottom of the barrel. The world of sports was definitely marred by many issues – from corruption, to doping, to short-changing of players and fans. But these problems were well-hidden behind the glamour, requiring very hard digging to get to the truth.

In politics, Ginny found herself with the same problem. It required months of painstaking networking to get any newsworthy information out of Members of parliament and Ministry employees, and then they often came with the caveat that she could _not_ write about them. And she had to comply, in order to preserve the trust and goodwill of her sources. It was terribly frustrating at times, but more than worth it when she did manage to expose a story worth telling.

"Anyway, do you know how I can get a hold of Talbot?" asked Ginny. "I want to get some comments on his recent motions to the Wizenhoose, but his secretary is always blowing me off,"

"Actually, I just saw him at the marketplace. Quite unusual I think – he usually buys his groceries from Greenteeth's Greengrocers,"

It may not have seemed particularly suspicious to Lord Minchum, but Ginny's intuition told her otherwise – the marketplace lent itself well to many suspicious happenings.

"Sorry, Lord Minchum, but I'd like to catch him if I can," she quickly wolfed down her remaining Snidgets and opened her bag for her purse.

"Just go, Mrs. Potter, I'll pay for this one," said Lord Minchum, waving her away. "Just watch yourself – Talbot's not as simple as he appears,"

Ginny gratefully thanked the Wizenhoose member and left the restaurant, stepping back into Caelorum's Cirrus borough. The roads were made of clean red cobblestone, the clothing stores and restaurants on either side featuring classy, Victorian-style storefronts. Fellow pedestrians wore robes of diverse cuts and styles, but most of them of bright and sheening fabrics as was currently trendy.

Ginny hadn't been to the marketplace in a while, so she wasn't confident in Apparating to it; one could only Apparate to places they could clearly envision. So the next fastest option for her was by broom. Looking up, a few speeding specks of wizards flitted to and from her field of view; broom traffic was so-so this afternoon.

Ginny reached into the magically expanded interior of her purse and pulled out her broomstick. A Comet 450 model, it has been her treasured possession since her days as a professional Quidditch player. That was eighteen years ago now, but she still enjoyed a nice high-speed ride through the mountains on occasion. She firmly gripped the polished wood handle of her Comet, leapt onto the crossbar attached just above the broom head, and took off.

Her long hair whipped behind her as she flew away from the Cirrus borough. Throttling the mana she poured into her broom, she slowly down slightly and joined one of the many sprawling air lanes over Caelorum. She sped along the outer edge of the lane meant for faster fliers – beneath her, a stream of many-coloured robes fluttered in the wind. The sky above was nearly all white in a blanket of small beady clouds, as it was in every direction – a sea of clouds obscured the horizon all around as they brushed against the city's surrounding barrier.

That was because the main island of Civitas Caelorum was a gigantic hunk of earth with a mountain on top, floating about fifteen thousand feet above the Irish Sea. Attending the mainland were also numerous, variously smaller hunks of earth, connected by enormous rope bridges. The Cirrus borough that Ginny just left was one of those islets, floating near the peak of Mount Caelorum.

Ginny split off from her air lane and descended towards the marketplace near the mountain's base, one of many areas of the mountain that was flattened into terraces. She slowed to a crawling speed, hovering atop a street packed with shoppers ambling between rows and rows of colourful stalls. When goblins and veela still lived in the town, the marketplace was even more crowded and dazzling. The goblin and veela vendors hawked their races' most specialized trades; the goblins sold phenomenal gadgets that rivalled Muggle technology, and the veela sold beautiful magical paintings with distances you could stare into for miles. Albus used to talk to a one particular vendor for hours about how he achieved that magical depth…

Ginny spotted Augustus Talbot standing in the middle of the street – his extravagantly curly dark blond hair was unmistakable. But that was not how she spotted him; to Ginny's surprise, Talbot was chatting to none other than her third older brother Percy Weasley. Percy wore horned-rimmed glasses and was tall and lanky; his Weasley red hair, neatly combed, stuck out from the crowd like a beacon.

Ginny dropped to the ground and darted behind a fruit stand. She kept her broom and pulled out her wand discretely – brandishing a wand in a public space usually caused a commotion – and arc-cast a Listening Charm on Talbot. There was a lot of noise around them, but she could hear their conversation clearly as she pretended to look for a ripe chicken-flavour watermelon.

"I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about," said Percy.

"So you don't have one? I thought with your connection to Potter you would have one," said Talbot in his strongly articulate, aristocratic voice.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Talbot, but I cannot say for certain if I 'have one' if you don't provide more details as to what it is," replied Percy politely. Percy would not be caught by his closest family speaking in anything but the most proper, dignified manner.

Talbot sighed with what sounded like impatient resignation. "A charm artefact. This big?"

Ginny peeked from around the fruit stand. Talbot made a circle with his thumb and forefinger the size of a coin.

Percy shook his head. "I'm afraid I have no such thing. Was I supposed to be issued one?"

Talbot rubbed his chin with dramatic affectation, to make it abundantly clear to Percy that he was thinking deeply.

"I see. Well, how about I get you one? You're a good man, Weasley – above partisan politics. You deserve protection," Talbot affably clapped a hand on Percy's high shoulder.

"I'm not sure I follow, but I'm not one to turn down a favour freely given. However, if this favour has any strings attached, I must first know what they are,"

Talbot guffawed. "Ha hah, don't worry Weasley, no strings attached. By the way – how are repairs to the Transatlantic Floo Connection?"

Percy sighed. "Losing contact with the Irish Network set us back quite a bit. Optimistically, I say it'll take us three months to connect to the U.S.,"

The Transatlantic Floo Connection was a series of Floo portals across the Atlantic that used to allow wizards to travel across it in an instant, and reappear at any address they pleased as long as both start and end were connected by a chain of Floo portals within the Global Floo Network.

"Three months? That's awfully long," expressed Talbot.

"We have to construct the bridge portals undersea now – it's the only way they won't be constantly destroyed by Muggle drones,"

"It's very important work," said Talbot. "Perhaps key to winning the war. We need to join forces with our allies in America. Acton Rutledge is now in charge, yet?"

"Yes, he was made Acting President of MACUSA – the MACUSA that opposes the Muggle U.S.A. The MACUSA under their control is still led by President Gallagher,"

"Are there any special means of reaching the U.S. right now? Long-distance Portkeys, alternative types of portals?" Talbot sounded urgent.

"No, I'm afraid; the distance is far too great to create such a thing. Right now, the only means is crossing the Atlantic by broom, and that is far too perilous for inexperienced fliers,"

"Hmm, I see," Talbot nodded to himself. "Well then, it's been a pleasure speaking with you, Weasley. Let me invite you to dinner sometime –"

Suddenly someone touched Ginny on the shoulder – the world warped into a whirling streak and Ginny was forcibly propelled through it. Someone had used Side-Along Apparition on her. She dropped hard upon a steel chair, and shackles from the armrests and front legs immediately gripped her limbs. Fighting the dizziness of Apparition, she tried summoning a spell to free herself, but her wand was knocked out of her grasp by a Disarming Spell and flew behind her.

A man walked around from behind her, stowing her wand in his robes. The room was dark, lit by a single hanging lantern, with dull stone walls. There was a plain, unladen table in front of her, and a pair of chairs on the opposite side. But the man instead sat upon the table, sitting directly before her.

Ginny tried to scream ' _Expecto Vigiles_ ' – the Wizard Police's Distress Call. The Ministry's Taboo Sensor Array would pick up her call and alert Law Enforcement Dispatch to send police to her location. But before Ginny could let out a syllable, the man flicked his wand. All air she tried to raise from her lungs vanished as it reached her throat – the Silencing Charm.

The man pulled out a vial of clear liquid and splashed it in Ginny's face. She recognized the slightly cool tingle on her skin of magical energy being sapped from her – it was Dispel Water, used to remove Polyjuice disguises and other enchantments.

"There's no need to say anything out loud," spoke the man. A young voice, haughty and flippant. "Don't want you calling for help. I will ask you questions and you will think the answer loudly. Understand?"

His head blocking the lantern behind him, Ginny made out a soft glow in his yellow eyes. And two pointed teeth. Her heart plunged into icy cold fear – a vampire.

"Why were you eavesdropping on Augustus Talbot?" asked the vampire.

Why was a vampire protecting Talbot? Vampires were well-known to be enforcers for the Cabal – what connection did Talbot have with the largest wizard criminal syndicate in the world?

The vampire pressed his palm into Ginny's forehead. She felt something like a misty tendril reaching into her mind. Vampires, including Muggle vampires, gained innate mental magic powers usable without a wand. Vampire wizards also gained a boost to all their mental magic.

Ginny resisted with all the Occlumency she'd learnt from Harry; she purged her mind of all thought, save for a single will to force the intrusion out of her mind. If she let her guard down for even a moment, it would be the beginning of the end: the vampire would break into her consciousness, and erase her reason for resisting. Then he would have free reign over her entire being, able to brainwash who she was out of existence.

The shackles on her limbs heated up and burned into her skin – cold iron. They sapped magical energy from her, weakening her Occlumency. Ginny struggled against the shackles, thrashed as hard as she could, but the vampire held her head fast to the chair. She tried to shift the shackles out of her wrists, but they just seared deeper into her flesh, boiling her blood.

The vampire's nostrils twitched. "Hate the smell of burning flesh. Smells like bacon, you know what I mean?" He was trying to distract her, a tactic for breaking through Occlumency. "I smell blood, too. Really hate that. Brings out the thirst in me," He bared his fangs with a wide grin.

 _Is this it?_ Was this her death according to the prophecy? The thought only appeared for a second though – she used the fiery pain in her wrists and ankles to clear doubt from her mind. Once a professional Quidditch player, one of her skills was never letting doubt deter her – she just carried on, fiercely, stubbornly, towards the goal ahead.

"Stop resisting," said the vampire, with a hint of impatience. "There's no escape from here. You're only extending your pain,"

It was true; the Cabal did not make mistakes in abducting people. If the vampire were using a Legilimency spell, the Ministry would be able to detect the illegal magic with the Oculus Array and send police to its location. But a vampire's innate mental powers were technically not a spell, so they could not be detected. Her only hope was that someone had noticed her disappearance and alerted the Aurors…but by then it might be too late.

A door opened from behind the vampire, spilling light into the room.

"What's this?" came another man's voice, though she couldn't yet see him.

The vampire turned around. "I caught this one eavesdropping on Talbot talking with Percival Weasley,"

Closing the door behind him, the other man came up beside the vampire. He peered under the vampire's arm for a closer look at Ginny.

"Move your hand away,"

The vampire released his hand from her, and with relinquished his mental invasion. Her cold iron shackles stopped heating as she exhaustedly relaxed her Occlumency.

"Oh shit," the man fell back from her. "That's Ginevra Potter,"

The vampire's face contorted in confusion. "Ginevra…Potter?"

The man rounded on him with incredulity. "Yes, you dingbat. Harry Potter's wife! I leave you alone for a second and –" The man took a moment to collect his astonishment. "Oh, you are _so_ dead. Sir is going to kill you. Or worse – put you through the Gauntlet,"

The Cabal must have a policy of not hurting those close to powerful people in order to not evoke reprisal. This was her chance, while they were distracted; she focused all her will on building magic resistance. Her cold iron shackles heated again, but she grit her teeth through the pain – she had to fight off the Silencing Charm on her, and call for help.

"Are you serious? This is _his_ wife?" exclaimed the vampire. "How was I supposed to know what she looks like?"

"How the hell do you _not_ recognize her!" exclaimed back the man. "She was front Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies from 1999 to 2004,"

"I was six in 2004!"

"That's no excuse! I was watching Quidditch before I could read!"

Ginny felt a coolness in her throat – an effect of dispelled magic. She screamed at the top of her lungs. " _Expecto Vigiles!_ "

"Oh damn it," said the vampire.

Three seconds later, Ginny heard the thud of several feet landing from Apparition from outside the door. The door promptly burst open and two Ministry policemen barged in. The room immediately filled with a lot of yelling.

"Drop your wands!"

"Officers – misunderstanding –"

"Hands in the air!"

"Auror Office, VIP Protection!"

The vampire and the man, with the officers' wands trained on them, slowly pulled out badges from their robes. One of the officers levitated the badges in front of himself to inspect them.

"Huh. I thought it was weird, getting a call from inside our police station,"

Ginny wasn't sure what she was feeling, but it was akin to the time she witnessed her childhood hero Gwenog Jones being dragged away by her own team's Beaters for attempting to curse off her rival's face.

The other officer caught sight of her. "Is that Ginevra Potter? From the Holyhead Harpies?"

The man looked back at the vampire. "See?"

"…Fuck!" yelled the vampire. "So this is what I get for not breathing Quidditch?"

"Yes," replied the man. He then took out a multi-mirror and held it out to his colleague.

"Would you like to turn yourself in, or should we say you died honourably in battle?"

* * *

Ginny Apparated to the front garden of her home and stormed up the path to the door. Harry Apparated behind her and followed. Nearly breaking off the doorknob as she twisted it, she entered the living room and plopped down on the nearest sofa chair. Harry sat down in the sofa beside her.

"How are your wounds, are they healed alright?" asked Harry gently.

"They're fine," The flesh of her wrists and ankles were perfectly restored, but the skin tone was lighter and the hairs shorter. Those would grow to match the rest of her in short time, but the memory of that extraordinary pain would linger a little longer.

"Was that supposed to be standard procedure for the VIP Protection Division?" asked Ginny, facing Harry.

"At this time, yes," answered Harry softly. "Talbot is leader of the UWP, and a potential Minister for Magic after the coming election. He's a possible target for the Knights of Walpurgis, so I had him assigned a VIPP unit, though it was my division chief who assigned the men. What happened was…" Harry searched for the words. "…very unlucky. This sort of mistake rarely ever happens,"

"I'm not upset that I was caught," said Ginny. "It's what happened afterwards. Since when do your Aurors detain first, ask questions later?"

"Since the Knights of Walpurgis," said Harry. "They are very well-organized, and have many underground hideouts, tunnels and Floo nodes that are blind zones. My men cannot give any suspect a second's chance to escape,"

"They Silenced me! And used mind-reading!"

Harry's reply was monotonously factual. "The Knights have powerful dark magic, and their own Taboo surveillance. If a captured Knight managed to call for help, they can wipe his memory from afar. And since we have to Silence them, the only means of extracting information is with Legilimency,"

Ginny couldn't believe what she was hearing – those were excuses, not justifications. The capabilities of your enemy should not dictate your moral compass. The strength of your enemy should have no bearing on the moral value of your actions.

"Sergeant Derricks has been punished accordingly for his mistake. He expresses his sincerest apologies. He says he will watch every match you played, and promises to be much more careful in future,"

"You have a vampire Auror?" asked Ginny.

"Yes; he comes in handy quite often,"

Was Harry referring to their innate magic resistance, which made them powerful foes, able to shrug off lesser spells? Or their enhanced physical attributes and senses, which included echolocation and hearing conversations through walls? Or their innate mental powers, undetectable by the Oculus, which enabled them to read minds and influence emotions with impunity?

"I thought he was a Cabal enforcer," said Ginny.

Harry's tone hardened slightly. "Not all vampires are in the Cabal, just like not all werewolves are child eaters,"

Ginny deserved that censure. Especially when she had written many articles criticizing the Ministry for its discrimination of mutant-cursed wizards. Even when one should know better than to judge prematurely, sometimes instinct can overcome reason.

"So why were you eavesdropping on Talbot and Percy?"

Ginny sighed. "I heard that Talbot was in the marketplace, so I went there to speak to him. When I saw him with Percy, I just thought I'd listen in,"

"Hmm. Neither of them know that this happened, and I think I'd prefer to keep it that way, in case Talbot kicks a fuss about it,"

Ginny thought back to the mystery of that conversation. "Talbot said something…he asked Percy if he had something, something Talbot thought he would have because of his connection to you,"

"Me?" Harry said surprised.

"Yes. A charm artefact, about this big," Ginny made a circle with her thumb and forefinger as Talbot had.

"I see,"

Harry was not only a master of Occlumency; he was also a master of being expressionless. Ginny could read many people with her experience as a journalist, but when Harry had 'classified information', there was nothing she could get out of him. So when Harry revealed something with his expression, it was because he decided it was fine to do so.

"What was he talking about?" asked Ginny, peering at him. "Harry?"

Harry pondered, and then breathed out heavily.

"He was talking about Occlumency Charms,"

"Occlumency Charms?" The term rang a faint bell. Then she remembered an article she herself had written over a year ago. "…Wasn't that a hoax by the Cabal? The Confederation commissioned a team to investigate and reported that they didn't work. In fact, they were actually mind control artefacts,"

"There was no investigation," said Harry. "The Charms were legitimate. They will absorb any mental magic targeting the wearer, lasting as long as the Charms have magical energy,"

"…What?" Even compared to the exposés she had written before on Ministry corruption, this was on another level. "…Which countries in the Confederation? Why would they want to keep the Charms a secret?"

"…All of them," replied Harry. "When the Charms started appearing, they held a summit. I wasn't there, but I heard from Cadogan. The Confederation decided unanimously they needed to keep wizards from buying the Charms and reverse-engineering them. Because anyone capable of producing the Charms would have a great deal of influence over the Muggle countermagic agencies,"

"The countermagic agencies…like MI7,"

"Yes," Harry continued. "Lowther and I sent teams to raid the Cabal's warehouses. We found most of their stores of Occlumency Charms and its schematics. The Confederation made us hand over the schematics – soon Ministries all over the world started producing their own Charms and sold them to Muggle governments, just to prevent them from buying from the Cabal instead. In the end though, we were tricked,"

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked, dreading the answer.

Harry reached into one of the many small pouches on his potion belt. He pulled out a small circular badge, bearing resemblance to a golden eye. With the Elder Wand, Harry pried off the wide golden ring of the badge.

"It turned out that the Occlumency Charms were…hackable,"

Inside the badge appeared to be dozens of copper tracks etched onto a green surface. The lines formed an intricate magic circle: patterns of esoteric symbols, Latin script, circles, stars and other geometric shapes, all surrounding a solid black centre.

"These are mana circuits, but on a tiny scale, packed in multiple layers, and also containing semiconductor devices. Muggle microchip technology, applied to a magical artefact. An illegal team of wizard artificers and computer engineers invented this. The Department of Mysteries has never seen anything like this. It took them a week to realize that with a special radio signal, the Occlumency Charms can turn from something that absorbs mental magic…to something that emits it,"

Harry replaced the gold ring upon the Charm and kept it.

"By the time our Department of Mysteries found out, it was already too late; other Ministries had sold Occlumency Charms to Muggle governments. Their countermagic agencies did their own examination, discovered the treachery, and took it as an act of war. That's how the war started in Africa, before the string of suicides,"

Though she was sitting down, Ginny felt like the world was rocking under her feet.

"Does…does this mean that the Cabal started the war?" she breathed.

"It's possible. But one of the Cabal members we interrogated said that the Cabal actually bought the schematic from someone else. We haven't been able to find any leads on who or what team,"

"And we never found any sign of a control device for the Occlumency Charms. Some in the Department of Mysteries think no usable form of domination it was ever actually possible simply by reversing the energy circuits. The DoM has since developed a modified design, which cannot be manipulated, and distributed it to top Ministry officials. But only those that can be trusted not to leak what happened to the public,"

"Not to…" Ginny shot forward in her chair. "Are you serious?"

Harry's face was harshly impassive. "Yes. You must not write about any of this. Nothing about the Occlumency Charms,"

Ginny sprung to her feet. "This is what started the war! We can't have people _not_ know the cause of all this!"

Harry stood up as well. Slowly his constrained calm turned into a shout. "This was just one of many things that started the war. Whoever framed the Ministries around the world – forging letters from officials of multiple Ministries, tricking us into giving Muggles the Charms, brainwashing Muggles to kill themselves – they set up one thing after another to push the Muggles into declaring war. It's easier for them to believe that we _did_ dominate them than that all the evidence is false. Do you see what we're up against?"

Ginny shouted back. "What does that matter?! People still need to know!"

Harry's anger was not explosive – it was hard and venomous – which was far more terrifying.

"I admit that this was a monumental screw-up. Of Cadogan, of Lowther, and of me. But if you write about this now, you will force us all to resign, and you will destroy our party's control of Parliament. We cannot afford to lose next year's general election. Do you remember who our opposition is?"

"Wait, what about Talbot? Doesn't he know about the Charms?" Ginny's volume didn't drop even as she asked a question.

"He was one of the Confederation delegates who voted to keep the Charms a secret. If he leaked the truth, he would burn himself along with us. You know who's behind the UWP in the polls? It's the Knights!"

Ginny couldn't believe who she was talking to. "Do you hear yourself? You sound like a politician! You're waving this enemy threat as an excuse to go behind the public and do as you please. This isn't security! The only thing you'll accomplish is breed more frustration and distrust with the public. I thought we were against this sort of nonsense in the Ministry!"

For years they were a team – Harry rooted out the faults of the Ministry, Ginny published them, and Hermione motioned Parliament for reform. But now…

"What happened, Harry? What happened to transparency, to accountability? What happened to 'I must not tell lies'?"

Harry's green eyes were leaden and cold behind his glasses.

"Don't you remember?" He showed her the surface of his right knuckle. A scar that used to be there was gone. "It healed after I acquired the Hallows,"

"You can't stop me. I already know enough to write an article," The moment she said it, she knew she didn't mean it. She wasn't sure what she was saying anymore.

Harry's voice was caustic.

"Why don't you think before revealing every little secret that falls in your ear? I know it's difficult, since you journalists never have to deal with the consequences of it, but try. If you expose this, you will put the lives of every wizard in this country at risk. That includes your life, my life, and our children's lives,"

"You are _completely_ blowing this out of proportion!" screamed Ginny. "You don't have to sacrifice everything to win this war! How do you know you can't do it if you don't even _try_!"

"This isn't Quidditch, Ginny! You don't just break a few bones if you overestimate yourself. You die! And everyone you were protecting, _dies_!"

Ginny's breath seized in her throat.

"When this is all over, you can write whatever you want," Harry muttered darkly. "String us all up. But right now, we need to _survive,_ "

Harry turned his back on her and strode away.

"Where are you going?" Ginny yelled.

"Restocking on potions," He disappeared into the kitchen and she heard him enter the adjoining potion room.

The Harry she knew, the Harry she loved since she was a girl, was always brave against all odds. He never surrendered his morals in the face of temptation or adversity.

But as time went by, Harry became more guarded, underhanded, ruthlessly pragmatic…more Slytherin. Harry always had that part of him, but he fiercely denied it when they were still students at Hogwarts. When he joined the Ministry, that part of him was forced to awaken. Now, Ginny couldn't tell if he was more Gryffindor or Slytherin.

Harry emerged from the kitchen and passed behind the sofa. He placed an Occlumency Charm atop the sofa backrest.

"Since you now know, you can use one of these. An extra layer of protection against mental magic,"

"Where are you going _now_?" Ginny demanded as Harry headed for the door.

"Work,"

"You know Rose and Hugo were almost handed to the Knights last week? And our kids had to fight a mob to protect them?"

Harry stopped before the door. "I know,"

"What are you so busy with that you can't even stop by Hogwarts right now?"

Harry's silence was agonizing. Her voice started to crack.

"You don't trust me. You don't trust me anymore,"

"It's not about trust. It's too dangerous," Harry spoke, still facing away.

"Where are you going?" She wasn't demanding anymore; she was pleading. But Harry remained soundless. "…More secret conspiracies to tend to?" It wasn't supposed to sound accusatory – more like a half-joke. But she couldn't keep the hint of spite out of her voice.

"…Yes," Harry left the house and Disapparated.

Sometimes Ginny wished she wasn't who she was. A girl who grew up the only daughter and youngest of seven siblings. Even when she wanted to back down, she didn't know how. She slowly sunk to her knees and cried.


	12. Chapter 12 - Basic Chemistry

Chapter 12 – Basic Chemistry

 _So that's what being Stunned is like._

Ethan woke up beholding the ceiling of the school hospital wing. He was in an adjustable hospital bed, with rows of several more beds around him, currently unoccupied.

"Ah, you're awake," said Hannah Longbottom, reviewing a cupboard of medical potions across the room. The school's matron, in charge of patching up students in this dangerous academy, was a blonde woman in an aproned nurse dress, with a pink face and a broad, if sometimes nervous smile.

Madam Longbottom sat beside him and bade him to sit up. She pressed a brass stethoscope-like object to his chest and back and turned some dials upon the chest piece. The device also seemed to be paired with a brass-framed mirror that displayed his insides with vivid, full-colour quality.

"Don't look if you're squeamish," she warned, holding the mirror as she dragged the chest piece along his spine. "That boy used a high-charged Stunner on you – fractured your spine. But everything's fine now,"

"Aidan O'Neill?"

"Yes,"

Ethan pondered on O'Neill's motivations. Did he do it for the fair lady's honour? Unlikely. More likely it was to get back at him at a time when it would make himself look good.

An unpleasant cringe crossed the matron's face. "He brings students here occasionally. And some animals. Tortured. Thinks he's covered his tracks well, but he hasn't. The girl you yelled at, Iris – he almost slipped her a sleeping potion once. If she hadn't spotted it…we checked his belongings – we found potion vials but his trunk was spotless. Recently cleaned of any possible ingredient traces,"

A cold, sickening bile churned inside Ethan. "And he's still running around right now?" he breathed.

"Yes, but he's been given another week's suspension, as he's broken his probation," said Madam Longbottom. She then put her tools aside and gave him a kind, worried look. "For your own safety, I urge you to stay away from him. Later, I think you should have someone escort you to dinner and straight to dorm afterwards,"

Ethan looked out a window behind him. It was not yet dark, but close to evening.

"Oh goodness!" Longbottom suddenly exclaimed. "I need to inform the Headmistress you're awake," She hurried her way out of the room, but was stopped startled at the doorway.

"Headmistress! A-and sir!" She greeted nervously.

"Hannah, you know you can call me Minerva," came McGonagall's voice, though Ethan couldn't see her or anyone else from his position. "Is he awake?"

"Y-Yes, Minerva,"

"I should like to speak to him alone for a while. Please show our guest to the waiting room, then carry on, Hannah,"

Longbottom left and McGonagall entered. She occupied the chair beside Ethan's bed.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Chen?" She asked.

Ethan rotated his shoulders and flexed his spine. "Fine, though I allegedly fractured my spine. That's magic for you,"

"Good to hear," said McGonagall. "Ms. Lascelles has scheduled you for detention this Saturday morning at the Detention Chamber. In case you are unaware, it is in the lowest level of the dungeons – take the first left turn and it is through the double doors at the end of the hall,"

Apparently she was starting with the good news. "Great; how do you stop prefects from abusing such power?"

"If you wish to contest any disciplinary sentence from a prefect, you may bring the matter to any professor; if they deem the sentence unfair, they may revoke it and punish the prefect appropriately,"

"Well then. Professor McGonagall, I would like to contest the detention I've received from Ms. Lascelles,"

McGonagall smiled thinly. "I believe there has been no unfairness in this case – one day's detention is fair punishment for one occurrence of grievous verbal abuse, which is against school rules. Perhaps it is even a little mild, considering the effect you had on her,"

"Heh. I guess I deserve it," Several hours had passed since lunch, but to Ethan it was still several minutes ago. Iris's crying form was fresh in his mind.

"I hope you understood that it was to your best interest to not draw attention to yourself while at Hogwarts. You have failed spectacularly,"

"Well," Ethan started admittedly. "Some things came up that I uh, couldn't resist. In retrospect, I have been acting less than pragmatic on a number of occasions,"

"Perhaps it was inevitable – secrets are difficult things to keep. But it is no matter; I have managed to convince the police that you are no threat to your surroundings,"

"Really? What story did you tell them?"

McGonagall cleared her throat.

"You are in fact a Muggle. That much is undeniable. But you are also a wanted fugitive and indicted for numerous cybercrimes against businesses and the U.S. government. Your parents are Muggles, but your uncle was a wizard – he brought you to Britain to flee the U.S. As the war escalated, your uncle approached me to take you in for safety, and I accepted you like any other student. However, the Ministry of Magic learnt of your presence, and asked for your cooperation. For several months, you assisted the Ministry with information about Muggle technology and conducted cyberattacks against the Muggle British forces. Once your services were no longer necessary, you were then allowed to enter Hogwarts,"

Ethan let out a little snort. "That's a little close to the truth, isn't it? Not that I really mind,"

"A search on the Internet was all it took for Ms. Lascelles and the police to uncover most of your history. You are, after all, rather renowned in your field,"

He wouldn't call himself a household name, but Ethan did make the news several times during his twenty-month-long criminal career, before he was taken by Harry Potter. However, what the news media reported about him only scratched the surface of his past.

"Is me being a Muggle informant going to make the news?" asked Ethan. "If so, there's a chance Lowther will realize I'm here,"

"Yes, about that matter…" McGonagall paused, then turned her head sharply at the near wall, like she had heard something through it. "Ah, our guest has expired his patience,"

The door opened and in entered Lowther. Twirling his steel quill in his hand.

"Ethan Chen. So you were alive after all,"

He stood over the foot of his bed and smiled bemusedly.

"I heard an interesting story from Law Enforcement Dispatch. About a girl reporting that there was a Muggle in her school. That alone wasn't a huge deal, not worth my attention. Then I heard that a simple background check discovered that the Muggle was a hacker on the U.S.A.'s most wanted list,"

"So I guess the Memory Charm Potter put on me is about the night he freed you," The Head Spook of the Ministry scrutinized Ethan through his rectangular glasses, watching for a reaction. Ethan gave him none.

"I've known since the next day that it was Potter. I suppose his plan is to smuggle you into Muggle territory so you can help the Order of the Phoenix with its, uh, peace campaign. Potter and I may have our differences, but ultimately we are on the same side. Which is why you're currently still alive,"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Lowther," interjected McGonagall. "I will not abide any threats on the life of my students, especially from the Ministry. Should you bring any harm Mr. Chen, I will ensure that it will the end of your career,"

Lowther smirked. "That's a rather weak bluff, Professor. We both know that you're not foolish enough to tarnish the reputation of this administration in these precarious times,"

"You were a quiet and polite student, Nowles," McGonagall spoke coolly. "Almost meek, some would say. But you were never led astray by the pressures of your House peers. I hope this is not truly who you've become,"

"We alumni exist to disappoint," Lowther gave a short bow to her.

Ethan quietly vented the breath he was holding – he was not heading back to the Ministry after all. Now he was ready to enter the conversation.

"Why are you so eager to kill me? What information do I have in my head that you don't want out?" He had not given the matter much thought lately, but the mystery remained that Lowther had a Memory Charm on him, blocking something of import.

Lowther smiled at him. "Private information. The typical things that can ruin a career,"

A lie. "I highly doubt you ordered a hacker to help you cheat on your wife,"

Lowther chuckled. "We should have talked more when you were working for me. It turns out you're quite an interesting boy, from what I've gathered,"

"Well, dead or alive, as long as you're not in the wrong hands, I suppose there's no need for us to fight," He addressed McGonagall. "I mean it – do _not_ let him fall into the wrong hands," Lowther's earlier casualness reversed into foreboding.

"I will do everything in my power to prevent that," replied McGonagall.

"Good," Lowther turned to Ethan. "Have fun in school, boy. Watch out for Slytherins; they're a mean lot. I should know – I was in Slytherin,"

Lowther tossed his steel quill onto Ethan's bed. He turned back to McGonagall.

"If Potter is doing what I think he's doing, he's wasting his time. Divination Analysis says a catastrophe is approaching,"

"Divination Analysis? Forgive me if I'm sceptical," said McGonagall.

Lowther was deathly serious. "You know what I mean, don't you? It can't be avoided – it's only a matter of time. When it happens, proof of who did what in the past will mean nothing. We have to make a truce on _our_ terms, or fight to the end,"

The Head of the Ministry Office of Intelligence then took his leave.

* * *

McGonagall made an announcement during dinner that evening, explaining Ethan's situation. She particularly stressed that he assisted the Ministry and beseeched the school to accept him, but Ethan knew from the hysteria that exploded over the Hall that it was an impossible request from the outset. She was basically asking a bunch of eleven to eighteen-year-olds to think rationally.

Timothy and Varun said not a word to him last night; they gave him a generous amount of personal space and ran away to the common room first thing in the morning. Squibs fell silent and watched him warily when Ethan descended from his dorm and crossed the common room.

On his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, students that passed him invariably cast him with an evil eye. Before, it was just bullies that hated him. Malcontents who would be bullying others anyway if they weren't focused on him. Now, even ordinary, good-hearted students genuinely hated his existence. A Hufflepuff first year ran up to Ethan, spat at his feet, and ran off. Ethan carried on walking. It wasn't his first time being the subject of loathing of an entire school.

At breakfast, every time Ethan reached for a plate of food, someone would levitate it away from him. Sniggers were everywhere, so Ethan could not identify the culprit or culprits, but suspected they were from the Ravenclaw table. Ethan decided to wait by the lake until the end of breakfast period, when the Ravenclaws left for class, to return to the Hall and scarf down what food was left.

When he returned to the Entrance Hall, he encountered the Scamander twins on their way out to class. They avoided his eye and quickened their pace away. When Ethan entered the Great Hall, he was greeted by Peeves.

"Muggle alert! Muggle alert! There's a Muggle at Hogwarts!" The poltergeist cartwheeled circles around his head, cackling madly. "Criminal mastermind! Run away children! Or he'll say something mean about you!"

There was an untouched plate of pancakes straight before him on the Squib Table – clearly a trap. Ethan went halfway down the Slytherin table and swiftly crammed plain toast down his throat, ignoring the sniggers of the remaining students leaving the Hall.

Peeves floated in front of him upside-down and started to freestyle rhyme. _"Meany 'Murrican Muggle stuffing his cheeks; Surrounded by wizards, his future is bleak; Once Headmissy is gone, he won't last a week,"_

Ethan gulped down juice and swallowed. "Very nice. Thanks for the concern," he said as he headed his way out the Hall for Potions. Peeves guffawed after him and zoomed away into the floor.

Outside the double doors, Ethan was accosted by Farley and two of his associates, blocking his path to the dungeons.

"You're a dead man, Muggle," Farley stabbed a finger in his chest.

Ethan groaned loudly. "Aren't I already done with you?"

"Crawford wants you out," growled Farley. "Once he's Headmaster, it's Muggle hunting season for us,"

"That's cute, except for one thing,"

Farley looked confused at his calmness. "What?"

"You know that Nowles Lowther visited me, right? The Head of Ministry Intelligence?"

Farley's grimace showed an affirmative.

"Why do you think I'm still here?" Ethan grinned evilly. "McGonagall said this last evening, but I guess it must have exceeded your information bandwidth – I'm a very valuable informant. You know what 'informant' means? Go check a dictionary later. But suffice it to say, if anything happens to me, Lowther will be very upset,"

Farley was struggling to disbelieve him, but his cautiousness held him in check.

"You should rehearse lines for your expulsion hearing," said Ethan, walking around him and friends and continuing for the dungeon entrance. "With my luck, you'll probably be given an award or something,"

Ethan entered his Potions classroom; most of Ethan's classmates were already waiting, though Professor Slughorn was running late as he was wont to do. Ethan took a seat at an empty table at the back of the class; when Timothy and Varun entered, they sat at the table at the opposite back corner of the class. It seemed Ethan would have the whole table to himself for this lesson.

Now, if he were allowed to use the Potion ingredients and equipment, he might utilize the space for some experiments. But as a Squib-now-outed-as-Muggle, he would have to make do with simply reading his textbook, or perhaps daydream about his life and the world outside. He would be targeted more than ever now; the library and the grounds would no longer be safe for relaxing. Even the dorm room might be subject to intrusion by Squibs other than Timothy and Varun. His classes may be his only sanctuary now, the only time he would be able to find some peace and privacy –

"Hi Ethan,"

Lily Potter sat down in the stool beside him.

"…Hi?" he replied suspiciously. Lily's friends, Delfina and Jessamine, stood to her left, looking terribly self-conscious.

"Lily, what are you doing?" hissed Jessamine to Lily's shoulder.

"I just want to ask him some things," said Lily. "Is that okay?" She turned to Ethan.

"Depends on the things,"

"Can't you wait until after class?" asked Delfina, peering around anxiously. Students were starting to notice them.

"What's wrong with now?"

Jessamine groaned with exasperation. Ethan thought he would help out the poor friend.

"What's wrong is that you shouldn't be seen talking to me,"

"Why? Because you're a Muggle?" said Lily, with a tone like an innocent child.

"Among other reasons,"

"So it's true, what Professor McGonagall said? You're a Muggle that came here to escape the U.S.?"

Everyone else so far seemed to have taken McGonagall at her word; Ethan found it curious that it was Lily of all people who sought confirmation.

"Yup. All true,"

Lily looked at him in fascination like he was a rarely-shaped strawberry. Professor Slughorn then entered the classroom.

"Sorry for the tardiness everyone – teacher's meeting. Take your seats, everyone. We're a little strapped for time this lesson,"

Chatting students shuffled away from their groups and sat down. Jessamine tugged on Lily's arm like the roof was collapsing on them.

"Lily, c'mon. Let's go to our table,"

"Hold on, I'm not done yet," Lily shook her off.

"Open your textbooks to page 187; we're learning about body-altering potions. Delfina, Jessamine – please sit down," The two girls reluctantly did so.

"So, what are you doing here now?" Lily continued her questioning at a low voice.

"Just chillin', I guess," Ethan answered. _Waiting for your father to pick me up, if he hasn't forgotten my existence._

"People say you're a 'cybercriminal', and you're on the run from Muggle Aurors,"

"You mean the FBI? Yes," Ethan studiously opened his textbook and followed Slughorn's explanation.

"What's a 'cybercriminal'? I hear that you commit crimes through computers,"

"That is correct,"

"What kind of crimes have you committed?"

Ethan smirked. "Let's see…in a span of two years…computer intrusion, website defacement, invasion of privacy, property damage, forgery, extortion, identity theft, theft of bank accounts, theft of confidential business information, theft of classified national secrets, and…infliction of emotional distress,"

"Holy shit, Lily," gasped Delfina, seated to Lily's left. "I think you should stop talking to him,"

"…Really?" Lily gave him a baffled look. Ethan had a feeling the implications weren't quite reaching her central processing unit. "How do you do all that through a computer?"

Jessamine leaned over from Delfina's left. "Lily, the _Head Spook_ came here to see this guy. He's bad news all over,"

"The instructions for the Size-Shrinking Solution are on page 190. It is fairly complex, so you may form groups of two or three for this potion. You will all share the same grade. Each group, please send one person to collect the necessary ingredients and glassware,"

Jessamine, seated by the aisle, got up and queued to collect potion ingredients from a cupboard.

"Hey, are you friends with Rose?" asked Lily.

So this was ultimately what she wanted to know. "No; I believe she has a very low opinion of me. Why would you think I even know her?"

"Well, you're in the Chess Club, right? And well, when you railed on Iris yesterday," Lily paused. "You said a lot of nice things about Rose,"

Perhaps she was concerned about her cousin consorting with a criminal element. "I don't know Rose. Those were just random positive qualities I came up with to use against Lascelles,"

"Really? I thought you were quite accurate. Even if you haven't known her long, you had her pretty sussed out,"

Her curious gaze on him was starting to prick his patience. "Did you even hear my exact words or was it just passed down the gossip mill?"

"I did; when the whole Great Hall saw what was happening, some of us used Listening Charms to hear you," said Lily. "That was er, really something. I've never seen anyone explode like that before. Not even my mum,"

The image of Iris crying in a broken heap surfaced again in his mind. "I will admit I let my anger get away from me back there,"

Jessamine returned with a tray full of ingredients and glassware and pushed them down the table to Delfina.

"Why were you so angry though? If you don't mind me asking," said Lily.

"Why? Because Lascelles revealed I was a Muggle," Ethan thought that much should be obvious.

"Really? But you only blew up after that. When Iris thought you were protecting Rose as part of a Muggle spy mission,"

Ethan was quite annoyed and weary now of the unending questions. "As I said back then – a ludicrous notion. A real Muggle spy would have more important business than protecting the Weasleys' daughter from love rivals,"

"The time now is 9:10," Slughorn looked up at a wall clock. "You have thirty-five minutes to complete the potion. You may begin,"

Thankfully, Lily stopped badgering him to help her friends with brewing the Size-Shrinking Solution. While the wizards were busy brewing, Ethan quietly self-studied. Having already read far ahead of the class's current pace, Ethan took the occasional moment to observe Lily's group, and he wasn't the only one. The entire class stole glances at them, turning their heads around to engage in terribly unsubtle surveillance.

"God, Lily, everyone's looking at us," whined Jessamine. Lily and Jessamine were in charge of prepping the line of ingredients to be added; Lily handled measuring and boiling the liquid ingredients, while Jessamine chopped and mashed the solid ones. Jessamine's chopped caterpillars and dandelion root were blocky and uneven due to nervousness.

"What are we supposed to say later?" asked Delfina. She managed the cauldron: standard size 2, pewter, about the size of a saucepan. She added the ingredients, conducted the stirring and cast alchemy spells as per the instructions.

"What else? That Lily wanted to question the Muggle about stuff," replied Jessamine. "Hopefully no one starts calling us traitors,"

"Seriously?" said Lily in disbelief. "We're just sitting next to him,"

"And besides," added Ethan. "I'm on your side, remember? I'm a wanted fugitive. And I've aided the Ministry with hacking and information,"

Jessamine almost cut herself with her knife. "I wasn't talking to you, Muggle!"

"Maybe," wondered Delfina aloud. "He's a Muggle spy that's only pretending to be on our side. And he's waiting for the right moment to call in the military and take the whole school hostage,"

"Oh gods," said Ethan. "Why does everyone think I'm a Muggle spy?"

"Hmm," Lily mused as she stirred a beaker of beetle juice. "I think you just seem very spy-like. Like, how to put it – very cool and smart,"

"Oh shit," gasped Delfina. "I think something's wrong with the potion,"

Both Lily and Jessamine looked over the cauldron. "What's wrong with it?" asked Lily.

"It's supposed to be green at this step, but it's purple," said Delfina, her voice high with rising panic.

"That's not purple, it's mauve," said Jessamine. "Actually, no…maybe mulberry…check the stupid colour chart,"

Ethan stood up to look in the cauldron. The boiling liquid within was indeed a hard-to-name shade of violet.

"Looks like you added Pixie dust before the dandelion root, so the Moke blood has combined with the dust instead,"

Jessamine rounded on Delfina. "You mixed up the sixth and seventh step!"

"I'm so sorry!"

"Hurry, we have to start over," said Jessamine.

"Not really," interjected Ethan. "You just need to distil out the active alchemical compound and disassemble it, then add the elements back to the concoction,"

Lily turned to him. "How do we do that?"

"Well first, reverse the emulsion by adding Runespoor venom –"

"Hold it – let's just start over," said Jessamine.

Lily whirled around. "Jess, we don't have time for that. Let's do what he says,"

"No! How do we know he's right?"

Ethan didn't particularly mind if they listened to him or not. "Runespoor venom is a demulsifier – it's in the book,"

Jessamine addressed Delfina. "Delfi, empty the cauldron, we're starting over,"

"Delfi, don't! If we start over now, we're going to fail!" cried Lily.

"I'm not taking orders from a Muggle!" Jessamine hissed vehemently.

"Delfi! Talk some sense into Jess!"

"Delfi, we don't have time to try new shit, we need to start over now!"

Delfina looked about ready to fall to pieces. She wavered back and forth over the cauldron.

"I…Lily I think we need to start over,"

Lily gaped incredulously at her two friends. She stood motionlessly for a long moment. "…Fine! Then gimme that potion! I'm partnering with Ethan now,"

" _What?_ " said Jessamine.

" _What?_ " said Ethan.

Lily grabbed the cauldron and dragged it across the table between herself and Ethan.

"Woah, hold it," said Ethan. "I didn't say I would help you," They didn't even know if it was allowed, since Squibs didn't have to do any Potion practicals.

"What? I-I thought you _were_ helping me," Lily stared at him blankly.

"I was just throwing out advice,"

"Well, just keep doing that? Please?" She clapped her hands together, beseeching him. Her eyes, dazzlingly green, quivered with suspense.

Adding the time needed for the distillation and disassembling process to the remaining steps of the potion, Lily had little to no chance of finishing it herself. The only way she could make it was…with his help.

There was no benefit to be gained from taking on this trouble. Well, there was Lily's gratitude to gain, but that wasn't particularly useful. Then again, if he refused, he'd just go back to reading like every other day, and he _did_ want to try his hand at potioneering. Then there was the fact that she was so far the only fellow student since last evening to not explicitly hate his guts. To leave her to fail after she declared she was willing to work with him…not even he was that cruel.

"Go get distillation apparatus from the cupboards. I'll get the venom,"

Lily's visage widened with surprise, then brightened. "Right," She headed for the cupboards at the side of the classroom. Ethan went down the aisle towards Slughorn's desk. Their movement was noticed by the entire class.

"Professor, can I have a vial of Runespoor venom? I need it to demul –"

Slughorn Summoned a small bottle from an icebox cupboard and handed it to him. "Here you go,"

That was oddly quick. Ethan returned to the table. He passed Jessamine and Delfina down the aisle, on their way to ask Slughorn for extra potion ingredients, which he only allowed since they were a new team. Ethan uncorked the bottle of greenish venom, dumped it in the cauldron, and stirred clockwise. He stopped once he saw the venom take effect; the unfinished potion split into two layers.

Lily returned with a tray carrying distillation apparatus. "I got them. Now what?"

Ethan took the tray from Lily and handed her back a distillation flask. "Once the concoction settles, use a Siphoning Spell to draw the top liquid into this. I'll set up the apparatus,"

Lily obeyed his instructions without hesitation; with her wand, she levitated a stream of murky yellow liquid into the distillation flask. As she did so, Ethan swiftly arranged the burner, the stands, the condenser and the receiving flask. Once Lily was done, Ethan finished the set-up by fixing the distillation flask above the burner and attached to the condenser.

The distillation process will take some time. Ethan lifted his textbook and reviewed the potion recipe. He then pulled over the empty cauldron sitting at his part of the table.

"Add water, boil, and follow steps eleven, twelve, fifteen, sixteen and twenty,"

"What?" cried Lily. "That's skipping ahead!"

Ethan double-checked the alchemical equations in his head. "Don't worry, it won't change the final product. We'll add it to the main concoction later. Might as well use the time,"

Lily went to work brewing the secondary concoction. Ethan took the primary concoction and performed some other steps that could be done ahead of time. As he was done, the distillation process completed; he poured the contents of the distillation flask back in the cauldron and lowered the heat of the brass miniature stove underneath it.

Next step was to disassemble the distillate; he dumped the now unnecessary distillation apparatus into his table sink and went to the cupboards to take electrolysis equipment. He stuck electrodes joined by copper wire in the distillate's flask and ordered Lily to channel a current through them.

"Oh yeah, disassembly," said Lily with recognition. "We just got back our essays on that last week. And you scored the highest in class,"

"You remembered that?" asked Ethan.

"Of course; everyone else was so pissed,"

After a minute, the liquid changed from blue to red, and a coat of pink pixie dust had collected on one of the electrodes.

"Finally," Ethan dumped the Moke blood component in the cauldron, then added dandelion root and pixie dust in the right order. Lily poured in the secondary concoction, and Ethan guided her through the remaining steps.

"Stir counter-clockwise slowly…add Shrinking Violet nectar…bond the reagents,"

Lily cast an alchemy spell to bind the alchemical compounds. The end result was a misty liquid of…either lilac or lavender – colours weren't his field of expertise.

"Whew, we're done," Lily sighed.

"Not yet – we still need to remove impurities and by-products, especially from the demulsifier," The substances were too fine to be removed by simple filtration. "We need a coagulating agent,"

"Like alum?"

Ethan wasn't expecting that. "Yes. Like alum,"

Lily conjured a tiny pebble of potassium aluminium sulphate and it plopped into the cauldron. As Lily stirred the cauldron, the misty potion within turned cloudier.

"Six minutes left," announced Slughorn.

"No time to wait for the sediment to settle," said Ethan. "Do you know what centrifugation is?"

"…Say that again?"

"Can you turn the cauldron on its side and spin it in a circle very very fast?"

Lily blinked at him. "Okay then,"

She put the cauldron lid on and levitated the cauldron off the table. Twirling her wand, the cauldron slowly spun in a tight circle.

"Faster," said Ethan. "As fast as you can,"

The cauldron picked up speed, turning into a blurry black donut of death. Every head in the classroom turned to their table in alarm; a few students instinctively bent their knees, preparing to duck. Slughorn sat up in his chair and drew his wand at the ready. Ethan realized a little late how insanely dangerous the task he assigned to Lily was.

However, since Slughorn didn't stop them, Lily continued to spin the cauldron for five minutes, which Ethan suspected was quite an intense feat. She was singularly focused on the cauldron the entire time, and beads of sweat started to trail down her scrunched expression.

"Alright, that's enough," said Ethan with half a minute left on the clock. "Bring it back down slowly,"

The donut of death slowly reverted back into a cauldron. Opening the lid, all the sediment was now compacted to the very bottom. Lily scooped the final product into their submission flask, then wrote their names upon the label: _Lily Potter & Ethan Chen. _Just as she did, Slughorn shuffled up in front of their table.

"Time's up, everyone!" Slughorn bellowed to the class. Jessamine and Delfina quickly cast the final combining spell over their cauldron and scooped up a flask: their potion was a marbled mulberry shade – possibly from not heating the concoction long enough at the second to last step.

"Very impressive Spinning Charm, Lily," said Slughorn at a low volume. "Just don't make a habit of using that trick,"

"Yes, professor," Lily apologized.

Slughorn nodded kindly. "Now, let's see what you two have for me," He took Lily's flask and examined it up close. Abruptly the professor burst into jolly laughter, such that he had to hold down his bouncing belly.

"Full marks! Purest Size-Shrinking Solution I've ever seen, made with ingenuity in the face of crisis, efficient task managing, and teamwork! Goodness, you two are like a trip back in time,"

Slughorn handed their vial to Delfina and bade her to pass it around.

"Notice how clear it is, and how it has a faint _wisteria_ glow. That's how you grade the purity. Allow me to explain how they managed to achieve this…" Slughorn returned to the blackboard and started going over the processes they used. Ethan felt wary at the implication that Slughorn had been watching them for the whole lesson.

"Wow, you're really good at Potions," Lily said to him.

"Well, a lot of Potions is just basic chemistry. I studied a little chemistry while I was at Muggle school,"

"Rose said that, too. I'm starting to wish my parents had put me in Muggle primary school,"

That was a rather dangerous thing to say in current times, and strange considering that she had lost a brother to the war.

"Thanks for helping me," She gave him a small but earnest smile. Ethan felt blood heating in his neck and took a breath to cool down.

"No problem. I enjoyed doing something in class for once," He faced her fully and smiled back with confidence.

Ethan did not get nervous around pretty girls. He had no interest in relationships and was able to squash trifling emotions with firm logical discipline. Some physical reaction was unavoidable, especially with girls like Lily, Rose, and Iris, but it was nothing he couldn't handle with a breath or two. He would not be the genius he was if he allowed physiological and biochemical reactions to interfere with his judgement and conduct.

"Still, let's not do this again," said Ethan formally. "It's not a good idea for anyone to associate with me at the moment,"

"What?" Lily looked utterly confused.

"Also, talk to your friends; they're pretty mad at you right now,"

"What the hell are you talking about?" snapped Jessamine.

Lily turned to her friends and started to perform damage control – actually, just more damage, since Lily simply refused to grasp where she had gone wrong. Thus, they spent the rest of the lesson whispering harshly at one another with little resolution.

"If you had helped us, we could've finished our potion properly," said Jessamine. "But instead you chose a Muggle over us," She stormed away once the class was dismissed.

"That's _not_ what happened," Lily went after her. Delfina followed after them with a pained look.

"Ethan, could you come here, please?" called Slughorn, waiting at the teacher's desk.

The rest of class whispered heatedly as they left the classroom, no doubt discussing the lesson's titillating events. Ethan paid their glowers no mind as he approached Slughorn. "Yes, professor?"

Slughorn waited until the last student had disappeared before speaking. "I only mentioned this in passing last week, but I was very impressed with your essay on alchemical disassembly. I would have handed out copies of it to all my classes, but I'm afraid most of my students would not have understood it,"

Ethan wasn't sure what his aim was, but a little antagonism always revealed information.

"That's because your textbooks' idea of chemistry is hilariously outdated, oversimplified, and plain wrong in many areas,"

Slughorn nodded appreciatively. "That is true – I am well aware of it. My boy, if I didn't understand electron band theory and its application to semiconductors, do you think I would have graded your essay an 'Outstanding'? The issue with the outdated material of the books is that the academic authorities in the Ministry's Department of Education will only accept into the syllabus theories that are supported by wizards' research, using only magic experimental and observational techniques. They believe Muggle scientific findings are unreliable, as is any data acquired through the use of Muggle technology,"

"That's…incredibly stupid,"

"It is. But we are not here to discuss that. We need to discuss your reward,"

"Reward?" Ethan repeated quizzically.

"Yes; unfortunately, you are only taking half-OWL in Potions, thus I cannot grant you a grade for your work today when you don't have a practical grade component,"

Ethan was not the type of person to turn down gifts for no reason. "What do you have to offer?"

"Hmm," Slughorn intoned thoughtfully. "How about joining me for tea and supper tonight?"

"I'll pass on that," That was practically detention in Ethan's book. "How about information? What was the teachers' meeting about?"

Slughorn chortled to himself. "It was about you, of course," Slughorn smiled upon him with the gentleness of an old man. "Last evening, the Headmistress held a faculty meeting to impart us with all the information she knew about you. Including the time you spent at the Ministry,"

"I see," said Ethan. That latter bit was easy enough to extrapolate from details in news reports. "And what about this morning?"

"We discussed what to do about that information,"

"And?"

Slughorn's eyes glinted with conspiracy. "I'm afraid that's enough for now. If you want more information, you'll have to earn it,"

That line pretty much confirmed Ethan's suspicions.

"There's nothing _to_ be done with what you know about my time in the Ministry. I don't need your pity or hospitality. And I especially don't need your half-baked attempts at giving me Stockholm syndrome. If you want me to help the Order of the Phoenix, I suggest you simply come forward with the best terms you can offer,"

"Is that what you think we're doing?" voiced Slughorn, still kindly. "You're right on one count: you don't need our pity. I was concerned at first, but you've definitely proven that you're more than capable of looking out for yourself,"

The classroom door opened and a group of students from another class entered to take their seats.

"I know your circumstances are…trying," said Slughorn, wrapping up their conversation. "But if you do nothing else in your time in our world, at least try to enjoy yourself. We have many faults, yes – but we have beauty to offer as well,"

Ethan slung his schoolbag over his shoulder. His next class was Astronomy, all the way up on the seventh floor. He was going to wait as long as possible to set off so as to minimize his chance of getting jumped along the way.

"I'll be the judge of that,"

* * *

Ethan soon learnt that it was not just Slughorn; all the professors in his classes were watching him, and kinder to him one way or another – they praised him for answering their questions and they chatted with him while students were busy with practical tasks. Ethan could not ascertain if this was due to their individual sense of sympathy after learning his past or part of McGonagall's plan to recruit him into the Order. Until he acquired proof either way, he was going to take caution with assumption of the latter.

After two days of minor harassment incidences, the final class of the week was Potions. Once again, Ethan sat at the back of the classroom by himself. A few minutes before Slughorn was due to arrive, Lily entered the class by herself and sat next to Ethan.

"Hi,"

"You again?"

"What do I mean, 'you again'?" Lily looked slightly miffed.

Lily was Harry Potter's daughter: there was a distinct chance that he had instructed her to befriend him, to make him more sympathetic to the wizards' side in the war. Harry Potter was aware he could not rely on the Imperius Curse since Ethan had grown highly adept at breaking it and could kill himself any time – the first and best option now was to recruit him willingly. If that were the case, there was a small question of why Lily didn't approach him sooner, but there were many possible explanations for that.

"Is there something I can help you with?" said Ethan.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"What do you want from me?" Ethan turned to her and asked much more harshly.

Lily's face widened in bewilderment. "What?"

Ethan stood up and drew close to her face; Lily leaned away but did not leave her stool.

"I heard all about the plan from Slughorn yesterday. Don't try to manipulate me; if you have a proposal for me, I suggest you just ask,"

Ethan scrutinized every fibre of her face for micro-expressions – any shift or twitch that revealed a recognition of what he said.

"I really have no clue what you're going on about. What proposal do you think I have for you?"

Every part of her effused a genuine aura of confusion. If she was pretending, she was the best actress he'd ever seen. However, from what he had learnt of her character over the past three weeks, she was not a master of impression management.

Ethan backed away a step. "You're not sitting here again for no reason," He said darkly. "Everyone wants something,"

Lily's brows furrowed, her lips curled – a sign of offence. "Can't I just be friendly?"

"With the school's number one public enemy? You should know better than that. People are already talking,"

"I don't give a Shrivelfig what other people think," She declared.

If she wasn't working for her father or McGonagall, there was one other likely reason for her return.

"Even if you don't, what reason do you have 'be friendly'? You want me to boost your Potions grade, don't you? Just come out and say it,"

Lily fell silent and looked away.

"Yes…I do want to improve my Potions grade. I'm only at 'A' right now…I need an 'E' for my OWLs to get into Potions NEWT class," she admitted meekly.

'A' referred to Acceptable, the third and lowest passing grade in Hogwarts' grading system. It was followed in rank by 'E' for Exceeds Expectations and 'O' for Outstanding.

"That's better," Ethan said coolly and returned to his stool.

Nobody came up to him to 'just be friendly'. He was not someone people desired to kindle a friendship with. Lily picked up her schoolbag and stood up to leave.

"Where are you going?" Ethan asked critically.

"To sit somewhere else, I guess," Lily replied, crestfallen.

"I can't help you if you're sitting somewhere else,"

While Ethan had no need or interest in friendly relations with others, he did accept mutually beneficial relationships under the principle of _quid pro quo_. Conservation of energy, Newton's third law of motion – equivalent exchange was the true basis of any relationship, not flimsy things such as goodwill or rapport.

Lily remained standing, perhaps considering if she even wanted his help anymore. "Thanks," She returned to her seat.

"Um, you said you heard about a plan from Slughorn?" Lily asked tentatively.

Ethan took a moment to devise a cover-up lie. "Yes; Slughorn knew you planned to improve your Potions grade and told me to expect this,"

"Oh. I'm that easy to read, eh?" Lily stared at the stone surface of their table. "I know it's just a waste of your time. I guess I was just thinking about myself,"

"You are wrong on both counts. I wouldn't agree if it was a waste of my time. Slughorn has agreed to offer me appropriate rewards for participation in practicals. And you already knew that I enjoyed them just to have something to do other than study. So it wasn't a selfish offer on your part,"

Lily turned to him with another one of her curious looks. From the door behind them, Jessamine and Delfina entered and went to sit with the other Gryffindors.

"So, your friends still mad at you? I noticed you three didn't talk much at Transfig or Herbology,"

Lily shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, still mad. But we'll patch up soon. I hope,"

Slughorn entered the classroom, earlier than he did on Wednesday. For the day's lesson, he wanted them to try their hand at crystallization.

"Most potions lose their desired effects in solid state, but for those that don't, they may gain some useful properties. For example, certain lattice structures allow for greater storage or conduction of mana…" Slughorn lectured on crystal properties for a few minutes before announcing their practical assignment.

"Instead of a regular potion recipe, let's do something different today," Slughorn waved his wand at the blackboard and on it appeared a list of instructions written in chalk. "This is a recipe for Rolling Rock Candy, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with from Honeydukes,"

The class murmured with excitement at the prospect of making sweets; it was another example of the ideas Slughorn employed to make his classes interesting. Lily was bouncing in her seat, her eyes alight with the fires of gluttony.

"Please split into pairs; I can't grade you for making sweets, but the team with the largest, fastest moving candy shall receive fifty points to their house – with myself as the judge, of course. Each team, please send someone to collect your ingredients,"

"Another group practical," Lily enthused to Ethan, "Twice in a row,"

"Yes, what a coincidence," He threw a hard look at Slughorn.

Lily leapt away to collect the ingredients. Once Slughorn announced them to begin, Ethan once again took command of brewing operations. While waiting for their cauldron of water to boil, they split up the preparation of ingredients, which mostly consisted of slicing various fruits and squeezing their juice into beakers.

"Hey Ethan. I'm sorry about earlier," said Lily, pausing in her work.

Ethan put down his knife as well. "Sorry about what?"

"Not saying from the start that I wanted your help with Potions. I should have said it the moment you asked. I guess I just…didn't want you to have the wrong idea,"

Ethan had felt a lump of guilt in his chest since interrogating Lily; he too felt a need to apologize.

"Well, I'm sorry as well. For being aggressive with you. It was uncalled for,"

"It's alright. I get where you're coming from. Life must be pretty hard for you right now,"

"I've been through worse," Ethan picked up his knife and returned to juicing oranges. "I think I have it pretty good actually, right now," He turned to Lily with his best attempt at a non-evil smile.

Lily smiled back; like a Healing Potion it washed away the guilt in his chest and filled him with vigour. Once they were done prepping their ingredients, they stood together over the boiling cauldron. As Ethan stirred the cauldron, Lily periodically poured in Runaway Beet sugar in small amounts.

"Did you understand Slughorn's lecture earlier? A higher temperature raises the solubility of the sugar, which allows the syrup to be supersaturated. Supersaturation is what leads to crystallization,"

"Wow, it's like you're teaching me," said Lily.

"I _am_ teaching you," replied Ethan. "You want to be better at Potions, don't you?"

"Oh yeah,"

Ethan continued to elaborate on every process behind their next steps. After dissolving their sugar, they poured the syrup into their beakers of fruit juice. With a weak Levitation Charm, Lily suspended grains of sugar in the solution; the grains acted as seed crystals, around which larger crystals will form through nucleation. Lily then channelled Freezing Spells on the beakers, which reduced solubility, resulting in their final goal.

"Wow," Lily bent down, lowering her eye level to the beakers to watch the candies growing plump before her. She looked around at the other students. "Ours are growing so much faster,"

"That's because our solution is thicker, and we've modified the heating and cooling numbers to speed up the process," said Ethan. There was no way Slughorn didn't know that his recipe was inefficient. Was it a tactic to identify and reward the smarter students? Not that it mattered to him; it just meant more free time.

Lily fished out one marble-sized candy in her mouth and made an appreciative squeal, pinched another one – orange-flavoured – and offered it to Ethan.

Aside from the fact that it rolled about in his mouth like a caged animal, it was just a chunk of fruit-flavoured sugar. _How simple._ Then again, no savvy sweet shop was going to just give away their more complex recipes.

"Welp, we're done – now we just wait for them get fat," Ethan sat down and started perusing his textbook.

Lily looked around again at the other teams, some of them still juicing fruit and pouring sugar. "It's kind of scary how fast we are. What do we do now?"

"You could try studying. If you have any Potions questions, just ask,"

Lily slouched over the table. "Oh God, you're like Rose," She gazed at the suspended crystal balls for several seconds before abruptly straightening up.

"Ethan, how 'bout we make another batch? I bet we could improve the recipe,"

The recipe could certainly use improvement, but confectionery experimentation wasn't a burning passion of his. "We don't have any more ingredients,"

Lily leaned closer and spoke clandestinely. "There's all sorts of ingredients in the cupboards. Most of them are edible and really tasty – I've nibbled them before,"

Ethan was finding it hard to believe that this girl was for real. "You seriously want to do this?"

"Why not?"

"Because it'll be an irresponsible, possibly disastrous, flagrant waste of school-bought ingredients," Ethan paused. "Let's do it,"

Lily beamed at him, and rose up more excited than she was the whole lesson. Ethan laid out their criminal plan.

"I'll distract Slughorn; you go take more sugar and whatever you want from the cupboards,"

Lily slinked away to the side of the classroom as Ethan strode over to Slughorn's desk, his textbook in hand.

"Yes, Ethan?"

The ingredient cupboards were along the right side of the classroom, while Slughorn's desk was at the left corner; Ethan would have to keep Slughorn's attention focused either downwards or entirely on him to cover Lily.

"Professor, I have two questions. First: will we be allowed to take the rock candies we make out of class?"

"Of course; you can't take any potions you brew out of class, but these aren't potions. But there _are_ magic detectors around every classroom to prevent students from leaving with school property,"

Naturally, that rule was to prevent powerful potions like Size-Shrinking Solutions from running amok across the school. It was a shame – the things Ethan would be able to do armed with such power…

"My second question is this," Ethan placed his textbook over Slughorn's desk, and pointed to one of the introductory pages. "This potion. The Elixir of Life. Is it real?"

Slughorn peered at him thoughtfully. "It was real,"

"And it did as it said in this book? It extends your natural lifespan?"

Slughorn nodded. "Yes it did. Indefinitely, as long as one drinks it regularly,"

"So what happened to the Elixir?"

Slughorn's explanation was uncharacteristically serious. "Producing the Elixir of Life requires a substance known as the Philosopher's Stone: only one has ever existed, its make-up unknown. Nicolas Flamel owned the Stone, and from it invented the Elixir. He used it to extend his life and that of his wife for over six hundred years, before deciding it was time to move on,"

"Just decided to move on?" Ethan scoffed. "You'd have to be an idiot to believe that,"

"It was reported that their bodies were frail and susceptible to illness. They chose to stop postponing the inevitable,"

"Still, they were healthy for a few hundred years, weren't they?" Ethan had done research on the subject in the library. "And this Nicolas Flamel, being the sole creator of the most valuable potion in the world, just took everything to his grave? He didn't disclose the recipe, didn't leave any reserves of Elixir behind? He didn't give the Elixir away, or sell it for money and influence?"

"Flamel's explanation to the press was that the Elixir only worked on him and his wife anyway, due to transmutations conducted on themselves which they could not replicate. The International Confederation of Wizards assembled an investigative team; the world's best potioneers borrowed the Stone and acquired Flamel's recipe, but they could not create an Elixir that worked for them. Eventually, the world accepted that immortality was not yet in our grasp, and the Flamels lived the rest of their lives in peace and privacy,"

About two and a half years ago, Ethan learnt that magic was real. He found that easier to believe than this.

"Maybe I'm just cynical, but I highly doubt such a happy ending. How do we even know the Flamels are not still alive?"

"There are many secrets and conspiracies in this world – powerful forces at play, beyond the ken of us ordinary folk. But I know one thing for certain: the Stone is gone. An old friend of mine saw to its destruction personally. If there was anyone in the world with the courage to destroy the Stone, it was him,"

"Albus Dumbledore," muttered Ethan.

"Yes. And I hope that answer is to your satisfaction,"

"Not even close,"

Slughorn chuckled lightly. "Maybe I'll tell you more if your Rolling Rock Candy persuades me. Which brings me to ask; how are you getting along with Lily?"

"You're not seriously going to dodge me like that?"

"She's a charming girl, isn't she? To be honest, I think you have the envy of about half the school right now. Tell me, what's your personal opinion of her?"

Slughorn was stonewalling; Ethan would be getting nothing more from him at the moment. Ethan looked to the right inconspicuously, and found that Lily had already returned to their table, chopping new ingredients. Ethan left without another word to Slughorn.

"You were talking to Sluggy for a while," said Lily as he returned. "What did you talk about?"

"Just some Potions questions," Ethan replied, and beheld all the stuff Lily had nicked: pulsating berries, glowing nuts, mildewed leaves and softly growling mushrooms.

"Is this going to kill us?"

"No, of course not. Trust me, it's delicious,"

Ethan went to help Lily prep the ingredients; he pulled out a mortar and pestle from the cabinet under their table and bashed the glowing nuts in it. Bits of nut flew out as he pounded, but he could not get them down finer than coarse chunks.

"You got to use a muddling technique. Here, let me show you,"

Lily shifted beside him and took the mortar and pestle from his hands. Ethan sharply backed away at the touch of her fingers. Lily stirred the pestle in a small circle within the mortar, grinding the nuts into finer bits. She pushed the mortar and pestle back to him. "Your turn,"

Ethan did as was demonstrated.

"There you go. Now I've taught _you_ something," Lily grinned broadly.

"Heh. I don't use such fancy machinery in the kitchen," Ethan said flippantly.

Lily's mouth fell open in shock. "You cook?"

"I made my own meals, for a while. But I just made the laziest stuff possible – sandwiches, salads…sometimes I'll bake fruit. But only once I've bored myself to tears,"

"That's…not really cooking,"

"I noticed you sliced those fruit pretty fast. I'm guessing you help out in the kitchen?"

"Oh yeah, I help my mum prepare dinner. I cook with Hugo too – he's a very good cook,"

As they chatted, they poured a new batch of sugar syrup into new beakers of avant-garde ingredients. Ethan studied the solutions closely.

"No sign of alchemical transmutation, so there shouldn't be any unforeseen effects. Still, can't discount the possibility of death or severe brain damage: I say we first test the candies on Farley or O'Neill, to minimize possible losses. Lily?"

Lily had already dipped a ladle in the growling mushroom solution and taken a sip. From head to toe, she visibly shivered.

"It's delicious!" She squeaked – her eyes sparkled and she was apparently quivering with delight. "Try it!" She pressed the ladle to Ethan.

Ethan took a sip. All higher brain processes terminated, reducing him to a single, overpowering urge.

He spewed the vile, creeping solution into the table sink. He was immediately followed by Lily doing the same beside her. They opened the tap and scooped water into their mouths, rinsing repeatedly until either the taste was washed away or a layer of their tongues.

Once their taste buds had stopped writhing, the pair of them stood hunched over the sink, catching their breath. Lily then burst into pure hysterical laughter, then mirthful chuckles, then tinkling giggles, wiping tears from her eyes. Ethan tried to glare at her, but couldn't break the grin on his own face.

"You do know that using potion ingredients not needed for your current class is against the rules?"

Slughorn regarded them reproachfully from the other side of the table. The entire class was also watching the two of them.

"Detention, for the two of you. Tomorrow morning, at the Detention Chamber," He levitated out their Rolling Rock Candies from their beakers – they were the size of golf balls – and set them on a tray, upon which they started rolling about like particles in Brownian motion.

"Professor," said Lily. "This was entirely my idea. I made Ethan go along with it. Don't give him detention, too,"

Ethan was taken aback by her unsolicited attempt to defend him. But it was to no avail.

"He is still just as liable,"

"Professor, I already have detention tomorrow morning," said Ethan.

"Then you'll have it again in the afternoon as well," Slughorn said sternly.

"I would like to use my reward for today to cancel my detention on Sunday," At detention, Ethan was bound to meet O'Neill and many others who had it in for him; as much as he would like to use his reward to acquire more information from Slughorn, he had to prioritize his personal health.

"Hmm…very well," said Slughorn after consideration. "But keep in mind that any misbehaviour in future will result in harsher punishment," Slughorn left them to inspect the other tables.

After Slughorn left, Lily and Ethan unceremoniously dumped their experimental concoctions and cleaned up the rest of their equipment.

"You sure laughed up a storm," Ethan remarked as he squirted beakers with cleaning solution and handed them to Lily for rinsing.

"I couldn't help it…you should've seen your face," said Lily, still smiling in spite of earning herself a weekend detention.

After reviewing everyone's candy, Slughorn once again announced Lily and Ethan as having made the best product, and granted Gryffindor fifty house points. The rest of their Potions lesson was spent listening to Slughorn go over various applications of crystallization in the magical world.

"Hey Ethan," Lily pulled her stool closer to Ethan's so they could talk more comfortably. "Are you free this Sunday?"

Ethan's heart jolted. "What?"

"Well, there's a lot of earlier Potions topics I don't get. Usually Rose tutors me, but she's really busy with NEWTs this year, so maybe you could teach me instead?" Her tone was so casual, she might have been asking to borrow a quill.

"Sure. When and where?"

"Really? Thanks!" Lily glowed at him. "How 'bout the library after nine o'clock? I know you don't get anything out of this – maybe I could treat you to Honeydukes or something,"

"There's no need for that. Teaching is the best way for me to reinforce what I've learnt,"

After handing out worksheets to be completed by next lesson, Slughorn dismissed the class and wished them a good weekend.

"Well, I've got to go to Duelling Club now," said Lily cheerily. "See you tomorrow, Ethan!"

Ethan watched Lily and the rest of the class leave, his mind in an unthinking haze. Feeling strangely light, he picked up his schoolbag and exited the dungeons. His body was jittery, buzzing with an inordinate amount of energy, like he'd just downed a couple shots of espresso. If anyone was glaring hatefully at him on his way back to the common room, he didn't even notice.

Halfway up the Grand Staircase, some degree of self-consciousness returned to him.

 _Why did I agree to that?_ It was like his critical thinking went on vacation when Lily asked him to tutor her. It wasn't that big of a deal – he would have used the time to study anyway – but he had agreed far too hastily, with no conscious consideration. That was careless, mentally negligent – Ethan never acted without thinking.

It was only when he was at the doorway of the Squib Quarters that Ethan realized – when he sipped that offending liquid from the ladle, his lips had touched the rim at the same place that Lily's lips did.

Heat rose in his cheeks. Blushing – it is the widening of blood vessels in the face, a product of released adrenaline, along with other symptoms such as heart palpitations, rapid breathing and pupil dilation. Blushing was involuntary physiological reaction, a function of the sympathetic nervous system triggered by emotions such as embarrassment, anger, or attraction.

But since Ethan was feeling none of those things, he shouldn't be blushing. He took a breath. And it was gone.

For him to be imbalanced by cursory contact with someone's saliva residue – it was juvenile, irrational, stupid. Even if it might have been the closest contact he ever had with a girl…no, what did that matter? Nothing. He, Ethan Chen, had no desire for close contact with _anyone_ , no matter how attractive they were. What he currently felt was merely a series of biochemical mechanisms: a reaction to stimuli which, by evolutionary presumption were supposed to be indicative of favourable traits for reproduction; a flood of hormones and neurotransmitters released in response to that stimuli, all to propel the hapless body into a nightmare of senseless dramatic complications.

Lily was…undeniably attractive. But while that may mean something to his body, it did not mean anything to him. The only thing that mattered to Ethan right now was leaving this damned school as soon as possible and returning to civilization. Everything else was a distraction; emotional occupation with irrelevant matters would only serve to dampen his wit and senses, impairing his ability to identify and seize the path to his one goal.

 _Always remember Ethan – it's just biochemistry. Everything is just biochemistry._


	13. Chapter 13 - Crime and Punishment

Chapter 13 – Crime and Punishment

Lily met up with Rose early in the morning and set off for their usual morning run around the school grounds. Often they found themselves the only two joggers in the morning; most others who ran preferred to do so at dusk or evening. After their run, they headed to the Great Hall for a light breakfast. Students with weekend detention were to eat breakfast early and report at the Chamber at eight o'clock, so the Hall was nearly empty save for three other early risers.

"Hey, Ethan!" Lily spotted Ethan alone at the Squib Table, eating oatmeal. She started towards him.

"Lily, stop," Rose pulled her back by the long sleeve of her running top.

"What's the matter?" Lily turned back.

Rose shook her head. "You can't be seen with him. There are people watching,"

The 'people' Rose referred to were just two others eating by themselves, minding their own business.

"I need to tell you something,"

Rose led Lily around the Squib Table and halfway up the Ravenclaw table before they sat down. Lily saw Ethan get up and leave the Hall – probably to avoid running into O'Neill before detention started.

"What is it?" Lily asked.

Rose's face was knitted with hesitation. "Well…the whole school knows, Lily," She said worriedly.

"Knows what?"

"That you and Ethan…are Potion partners," She said it like she was revealing news of a jaw-dropping crime. "And that people saw you two…having fun,"

"Oh," Lily thought people in their class might talk, but the whole school? Yet Rose rarely if ever never exaggerated. "Well, yeah, but what's the problem with that?" Since the first Potions lesson, she had already told everyone who asked her reasons: that she first wanted to ask him questions about himself, then wanted his help in teaching her Potions.

"Well, people are saying all sorts of things now," said Rose.

"What sorts of things?"

"You know – stupid stuff," Rose was being strangely evasive. "You shouldn't let it get to you,"

"What stuff?"

Rose looked away awkwardly. "Like…you're doing it to get back at Torrian – to make him jealous,"

Lily's jaw dropped. " _What?_ "

"Everyone's noticed that you and Torrian haven't been as close as when you first started going out. People think you must have fought over the summer,"

"That is _such bollocks!_ " Lily cried out. "Who said that? Who comes up with this stuff?"

"I don't know – I heard it from Erith who said she overheard it from some Slytherins at dinner,"

Being a common target of gossip could be so grating. The idea that people were always watching, judging her relationship with Torrian, made her both mad and queasy. And they dared to assume she was capable of leading someone on to make Torrian jealous – the thought never even crossed her mind. At worst, she suspected that gossipers would assume something else – that she was attempting to cheat on Torrian with Ethan – but wait, that wasn't any better…

"So you're really just asking for his help in Potions?"

"Yes; why is that so hard to believe?" said Lily indignantly.

"But he's only been at Hogwarts for three weeks,"

"I know, but he's already the smartest in our class – I think he's almost as smart as you!"

Rose glanced away again, wincing. "He's definitely smarter than me in some ways," she said softly.

"Really? Like what?"

"Just be careful around him," Rose pleaded, touching Lily's hand. "He _is_ a known criminal,"

"Yeah, I know. But he stepped in to help us, didn't he? I don't think he's a bad person. He must've had a reason for what he did. I mean, our parents broke a lot of laws when they were fighting Voldemort,"

"Hmm. Maybe," murmured Rose.

After eating breakfast, Lily and Rose parted on their way back to their respective common rooms. Lily returned to the Gryffindor Tower, took a shower and changed into school uniform. As eight o'clock approached, she went down to the dungeons to submit herself to detention.

The Detention Chamber was a near-black stony hall, with several rows of old chipped desks. Floating over the desks was the Hogwarts detention master and Slytherin ghost: the Bloody Baron. The Baron was a chilling spectre that looked freshly arisen from a battlefield. He face was bony and ashen, his eyes sunken and staring wide. His shoulder-long hair was grey, curly, and hanging unkempt like that of a wild man. As a ghost, his whole body, including his medieval tunic and breeches, was silvery-grey; but always in his chest was a deep stab wound with shining silver bloodstains forever splattered around it.

Lily took her seat somewhere in the middle left, far away from O'Neill and his friends who sat to the right. Ethan was the last person to report in, coming at exactly eight o'clock. When he sat down at the left corner behind her, Lily felt a little upset. She was hoping he would sit beside her – it was going to be a long boring detention, and it would have been nice to communicate with him via sign language or the like to pass the time.

"For the sake of our newcomer," the Baron's voice was a hoarse, gravelly growl. "Allow me to restate the rules. You are not to speak to one another. If you wish to speak to me, raise your hand and wait for me to answer you. You are only allowed to do school work here. Otherwise, you will just sit here until detention ends,"

Lily took out her Potions worksheet and textbook. For the first time in a while, she was finding her homework surprisingly easy; much of Slughorn's lecture had slipped her mind, but Ethan's explanations were strangely very easy to recall. It must be due to her being more receptive to one-to-one teaching.

"What is it, boy?" the Baron floated past her. Lily turned around.

"Do you know where Headmistress McGonagall is? I have something to discuss with her," Ethan lowered his raised hand. He hadn't taken anything out onto his desk yet.

"As Headmistress, she often has business to attend to," the Baron replied. He turned away, floating through a desk to patrol the other side of the chamber.

"You're the Bloody Baron, right? How old are you?"

"I am a thousand and forty," the Baron said, continuing to float away.

"A thousand and forty?" Ethan breathed. "That's insane. That means…you were alive during the Norman Conquest of England. Did you ever meet William the Conqueror?"

Baron swivelled in place. Hung from his hip was a longsword and scabbard, and one hand went to rest upon the pommel. "Meet him? I tried to kill him. Then he gave me a barony,"

Ethan's brows rose with interest. "Really? But you are a wizard, right?"

"Of course – only wizards can become ghosts,"

"How many nobles were aware that you were a wizard?"

Before the Statute of Secrecy, wizards were a part of ordinary society, some of them living as village herbalists and healers, and some belonging to noble houses. They were distrusted by a good portion of Muggles, but wizards were acknowledged, tolerated, even admired. Then the witch-hunts grew in popularity…Lily understood how it happened, but a part of her remained unable to accept it: if wizards and Muggles were able to live together before, why couldn't they do it now?

The Baron's mouth thinned. "I don't want to create an incentive for students to get detention, so I will tell no stories here. If you wish to ask more questions about the past, you may find me after detention," The Baron started to pivot again.

"Well then, if you won't tell me about world history, just answer this little question: How much of Hogwarts' faculty is in the Order of the Phoenix?"

The Baron's sunken eyes glared as he turned back. "The Order?"

Ethan grinned smugly. "Are you following the current trends, sir? The Muggles recently invented this thing called television, and on it sometimes is this group called the Order of the Phoenix that advocates for peace and cooperation between Muggles and wizards,"

The Baron floated higher and drew close, bearing down on him. "Don't get cheeky with me, boy,"

Lily had seen people try to get cheeky with the Bloody Baron before – the Baron destroyed them, usually reducing them to a cowering lump. There was a reason he was the one to whom the professors turned to control Peeves; he was by a large margin the most magically powerful ghost at Hogwarts and absolutely terrifying when angered.

"Well, if you're keeping up with the times, you must at least know what's going on in this school. Why should the Order be afraid of saying who its members are? If you don't even have the guts to declare yourselves, you must really be in a bind,"

The six other students in detention all had their attention to the left corner now. Lily threw Ethan a 'what are you doing' look – he noticed her but didn't send back a reply.

"Most of the faculty," The Baron answered.

"Including you?"

"Including me,"

"I'm guessing everyone except the house-elf staff, Scrooby and Crawford. And Peeves, though he's not exactly staff,"

Lily was not aware of that – that almost all their professors were supporting Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron. Yet, so far, she had only read of McGonagall publicly stating her support for the Order. What were the others doing to help, if they weren't advocating through either wizard or Muggle media?

"No more questions," The Baron stated firmly.

"No more questions," said Ethan coolly. "Just hand this to McGonagall for me when she returns," He pulled out a roll of parchment from his schoolbag and extended it to the Baron.

The Baron took it. "What is this?"

"My personal reflection. You wizards don't do this sort of thing during detention? I wrote it last night,"

"What initiative. But unrequired unless ordered by a professor,"

Ethan leaned back in his chair into a thoroughly relaxed posture.

"It contains details of all my criminal escapades – you people may have Googled me but you don't know the half of what I've done – what I'm capable of. Consider this my résumé,"

"Résumé?"

"Yes. I'd like to apply for the Order of the Phoenix,"

Lily wasn't sure she had heard correctly, and judging from the looks of everyone else, neither were they. Slowly the Baron lowered himself beside Ethan's desk, his feet planted on the ground.

"If you think this will get you out of this school sooner, you are mistaken," the Baron said severely; his voice was so quiet that Lily was sure that she and Ethan were the only ones who could hear him. "Why should you even think we want someone like you?"

Ethan stood up. "You _need_ someone like me," He was more than a head shorter than the Baron, but he stared up at him without fear.

The Baron's eyes widened at his audacity.

"You mean a thief, liar and extortionist. Someone who would jeopardize the security of his own country. Someone who would betray us the moment it was convenient to do so,"

"You think I'll betray you? All you have to do is offer good terms. You people have magic; you can offer me more than any Muggle government could,"

"We don't hire mercenaries," the Baron growled.

Ethan's face darkened in anger. "Mercenary? All I ask for is fair exchange for my talents. You think I care about money?" His rising voice reverberated over the chamber. "Why don't you read that parchment? A mercenary wouldn't dream of doing the things I've done. There are far easier ways to make money,"

"I've heard of the things you did. What you did was against the law,"

Ethan grit his teeth, looking almost as incensed as the Baron. He then breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling, never taking his eyes away from the Baron's.

"Let me ask you something," His voice was calm but fierce. "In the thousand and forty years you've stuck around, has the world changed?"

"Yes. Extraordinarily so,"

"Is there still evil in this world? Are there still kings and nobles wasting barrels of food while common people starve in squalor? Do they still tell lies and keep secrets to hold onto power, to sedate the masses into thinking they're not being cheated? Has our situation changed _at all,_ or have we just been exchanging one form of feudalism for another, changing shape but never gaining progress towards a society governed by anything other than raw power?"

The Baron watched Ethan's controlled anger with an inscrutable expression.

"You ask if there's still evil in this world. Yes – the darkness of this world is like a hydra. Varied, ever growing, ever changing, and more deadly as you attempt to vanquish it. You ask if the darkness has receded. In fact, it has grown. Because the world is bigger than it once was. But the light has grown as well. You ask if the darkness will ever be vanquished. This, I do not know. But I believe we are moving forward towards the light – the world is still much better than it once was. Of this, I have no doubt,"

"And what a comfort that is to the people who suffer today," Ethan said bitterly. "They don't have time to wait for progress. Not all of us get to live forever,"

"And so?" said the Baron, indifferent. "You think you were fighting for truth and justice?"

"I've uprooted a half a dozen conspiracies – lies and corruption going on for years because the 'law' has not the will nor the resources fight it themselves. We did everything in our power to expose them and force them into turning themselves in,"

"We?"

"I did some jobs alone. But for the big ones I was part of a team. A team of the greatest con and capering talent the U.S. has ever feared," said Ethan proudly.

"We've ripped off terrorist financiers, we've stolen money from cartels, and we've exposed banks that knowingly laundered money for both of them – any 'darkness' you think you've seen, I've seen just as much, and you have no idea what it takes just to survive in that world in this day and age,"

Lily marvelled on the edge of belief. _He did all that…from when he was thirteen?_ Lily wasn't even doing anything with her life yet. Being part of a heist crew at thirteen? The only person she could compare such a life to was…her father. Dad stopped Voldemort from returning at eleven; he slew a basilisk at twelve; went back in time and rescued his godfather at thirteen – the list went on.

"So you will lie, steal and threaten to fight this darkness?"

"Whatever it takes,"

"The motto of a true Slytherin," growled the Baron. "You've regretted none of your actions?"

"I don't regret doing what I could with what I had. Maybe if I had real power behind me I could do things 'justly'. But that's a luxury I've never been able to afford,"

The Baron's tone descended ominously. "What about the first crime you committed? When you were scorned by a woman, and took revenge on her? Do you regret that?"

Ethan's voice subsided. "…Yes. That is the only crime I regret,"

"Good. I shall relay your words to the Headmistress," The Baron tucked Ethan's parchment under his tunic. "Now you will remain silent until the end of detention,"

Lily finished her Potions worksheet, but barely progressed into the rest of her homework, as she kept pausing to wonder at the mystery that is Ethan's life. Were Muggle heists anything like the wizard heists she watched in movies? She had a bit of difficulty imagining Ethan breaking into company and government offices to steal letters and ledgers – talking his way in, she could definitely see that, but how did Muggles crack into safes or even locked doors without magic? Lily turned around a few times, while the Baron was looking elsewhere, only to find Ethan resolutely reading a textbook and jotting down notes.

After four excruciating hours, the Baron finally released them, in time to join the rest of the school for lunch. Ethan left in a hurry – to put distance between himself and O'Neill. Lily packed up her things and ran after him.

"Hey, Ethan! Heading to lunch?" She caught up beside him down the corridor.

Ethan carried on at a fast pace, paying her only a glance. "Not right now – I'm going back to the common room,"

It wasn't easy to talk at their brisk pace, but Lily couldn't wait for the things she wanted to ask. "Were you really part of a heist crew?"

"Yes – everything we did has been reported in Muggle news, and we always left a calling card somewhere, so they'd know it was us,"

"So you were like private investigators? Exposing conspiracies?"

"Yes – that was the only thing we did. Any money we stole, any other crime we committed was only to blackmail targets into turning themselves in,"

"I knew you had a reason for all the things you did," Lily beamed at him.

Ethan gave her a perplexed look. "You 'knew'?"

"I mean, I thought so. About the friends you worked with –"

"Oh, they weren't my friends," corrected Ethan. "Just…contacts,"

"Do they know you're here?"

The two of them ascended a flight of stairs towards the Entrance Hall. "No. I've been quiet for a while. They probably think I'm dead –"

Suddenly Ethan flew backwards, like he had been yanked by the hood of his robe. He landed on his back at the foot of the stairs.

"Ethan!" Lily ran back down after him. He staggered to his feet, clutching the back of his head.

"What's the rush, Muggle?"

O'Neill and two of his friends sauntered before them, their wands drawn. Lily drew her own wand – and three Disarming Spells fired towards her. She reacted with a Shield Charm, but it wasn't strong enough to deflect three spells – her wand shot out of her hand, bounced off a wall and clattered over the floor.

"You fucking prick cunt troll licker," Lily threw out whatever expletive came to mind. "The hell do you think you're doing?" She rapidly spun Torrian's ring on her finger, which was code for 'help'.

"Daughter of Harry Potter, defending a Muggle," O'Neill jeered. "Even fooling around in class – tired of Fraser already, Potter? But this piece of filth of all people…"

"Just leave, Lily," Ethan whispered, stepping in front of her. "It's me he wants,"

O'Neill laughed – an arrogant, sadistic laugh, colder than the air of the dungeons. "Still acting tough – that's all you know how to do, it's all you _can_ do…you can fool some people with that, but not me. In the end, you're still just a weak powerless Muggle,"

"Is that what this is about?" Ethan drawled, sounding bored. He threw up his hands in resignation. "Fine – your dick is bigger than mine. It's _enormous._ Are you happy now?"

O'Neill swept his wand – Ethan flew face-first into the stone wall on his right and dropped on his back, his nose spouting blood.

"Ethan!" Lily reached down to help him up, but he brushed her hand away.

"I'll be happy when I drag you outside this school and kill you," said O'Neill. That had to be a just a taunt – he couldn't be serious.

"Are you sure you should be killing an informant for the Ministry _and_ prospective member of the Order of the Phoenix?" said Ethan, standing back up.

"Nothing would make me happier," O'Neill raised his wand for another spell.

"Hey!"

It was James and Torrian, coming down the stairs from the Entrance Hall. O'Neill's lackeys shuffled back nervously.

Torrian held her arm out of concern. "Lily, are you all right? Are you hurt?" He searched her face for signs of injury.

"I'm fine – O'Neill attacked Ethan, TK'd him twice," said Lily. 'TK' referred to using a telekinetic spell, often in a violent manner.

James wore a dark scowl. It remained as he turned to Ethan. "Is that true?" He asked dryly.

Ethan pulled out a vial of Healing Potion and downed it in one swallow. "Yes," He wiped away the blood trailing over his mouth.

Lily felt a spike of irritation towards her brother. Why was he even asking when it was so obvious?

James took forever to pull out his detention booklet. "Detention, O'Neill. After you're done with your suspension," He said grudgingly.

"I'm afraid you can't do that, Potter," O'Neill was grinning like a madman. "Crawford has made me his Inquisitorial Assistant," From his pocket, he pulled out and showed them a silver badge in the shape of an 'I'. "No one but a professor can give me punishment. A necessary protection, so I won't have fucking house-elves trying to give me detention again,"

"You can't be fucking serious," said James.

"Oh yes I am," gloated O'Neill. "By the way, my suspension has been changed to at-home – Crawford's talking to the Baron to have me released right now,"

Lily couldn't believe what was happening to her school – bullies like Farley and O'Neill doing whatever they want with impunity – and why? Because a board of people who never set foot in the school have a problem with McGonagall's decisions? It was just so unfair.

"Everyone except the Muggle sod off – you're obstructing the hallway. If you don't, I'll have to give _you_ detention," O'Neill aimed his wand at Ethan. "You will receive special punishment – just for being you,"

Torrian stepped between Ethan and O'Neill's wand. "You're the one who needs to sod off, O'Neill. You're not hurting anyone while I'm here," Torrian bent down to pick up Lily's wand and handed it to her. O'Neill and his cronies didn't dare attack even during his defenceless position – all three of them together wouldn't be enough to break through his natural magic resistance.

O'Neill's cruel smirk faltered for a second, but resurged even stronger. "You're going to protect the guy who's stealing your girlfriend? That's beyond pathetic, Fraser,"

"No one's 'stealing' me, you arse muppet," Lily vented sharply.

"Let's go, Torrian," said James. "He's just wasting our time now,"

James turned his back and started back up the stairs, motioning for the rest to follow. Torrian turned his back on O'Neill and waited for Lily go first. Lily beckoned Ethan to come with.

" _Buforifors ad Accio!"_

There was a drawing-in sound – Ethan transfigured into a toad, almost invisible against the dungeon walls. He then soared straight into the grip of O'Neill's left palm. Lily heard a high-pitched, frantic yipping sound as Ethan struggled in O'Neill's tightening grasp.

Her mind gone white with anger, Lily cast a Summoning Spell on Ethan – his two helpers deflected it. She singed both their faces with fireballs, faster than they could even think of their next move. Torrian knocked them both aside and grabbed both of O'Neill's arms with two clawed, black-armoured hands.

"That's another suspension, O'Neill!" roared James. "Turn him back now!"

Lily raced through all the Transfiguration lessons she could remember, but couldn't put together the right counter-spell: human transfiguration was NEWT-level, and un-transfiguration particularly difficult. She looked up at James, then Torrian, but neither of them raised their wands – they didn't know how to undo it either.

"Turn him back," repeated Torrian, his voice lowering to a beastly growl. He was the tallest and largest among everyone in the corridor; though O'Neill was nearly as tall, Torrian likely had several pounds on him in muscle – his biceps, bulging under his robe sleeves, were as thick as O'Neill's neck.

"Or what?" sneered O'Neill. "You'll give me another week's holiday?"

"Turn him back," said Torrian once more. "Or I'll tear your arms off,"

O'Neill's two stooges shuffled along the walls and cowered behind their leader. O'Neill made two short attempts to pull away from Torrian, but he might as well be pulling on a rooted statue.

O'Neill snorted, smiling cruelly again. "Go ahead, Fraser. Do it,"

Torrian could do it – he was more than strong enough to literally rip O'Neill's arms off like a chicken wing. Madam Longbottom would be able to reattach it, but it would still hurt plenty before he got to the hospital wing.

"Don't do it, Torrian," warned James. "It's what he wants. You'll be suspended,"

Lily almost joined James in dissuading Torrian, but…wasn't _that_ what O'Neill wanted? Lily had half a mind to tell Torrian to call his bluff – but she couldn't just make Torrian eat a suspension…

"It's just suspension, Fraser," taunted O'Neill. "Go ahead and do it. Then Lily Potter and this toad will be free to do whatever they want while you're gone,"

"Shut the hell up!" screamed Lily. "Don't listen to him, Torrian!"

Torrian's grip tightened, making O'Neill wince. But then it slackened.

"I'm not like you," said Torrian.

"No," replied O'Neill, triumphant. "You're a coward,"

Every second they wasted in this standstill, Ethan was still being crushed. " _Accio Ethan!_ "

Ethan slipped out of O'Neill's grip into Lily's cupped hands. The moment he landed, he flailed, squeaked and almost ran off her fingers.

"Calm down, Ethan! I'm taking you to the hospital wing!" She wrapped Ethan between her palms and spoke to him through a small opening. "Madam Longbottom can turn you back,"

"There's no need for that," said James. "Put him down, Lily,"

"What?" said Lily.

"Put him down, or he'll land on top of you,"

Lily gently placed Ethan on the floor. He seemed to have calmed down, as he didn't hop or scurry away.

James flourished his wand at Ethan, and with a 'pop', he reverted back to human, squatting as he was like a toad. He fell back and leaned against a wall, breathing heavily.

" _What the fuck, James?"_ Lily rounded on him. "Why didn't you do that sooner?"

"I wasn't confident," James answered flatly.

Not confident – he cast the counter-spell non-verbally! Lily was as confused as she was enraged – she couldn't find a series of curses harsh enough for her brother.

Torrian let go of O'Neill and stepped away. O'Neill erupted in another round of sickening laughter.

"Look at you, Fraser – so much power, but you can't even do anything with it; you're beyond pathetic,"

Lily didn't need to hear any of O'Neill's drivel; she knelt beside Ethan. "Ethan, you okay?"

"I'm fine," He appeared to be controlling his breathing to calm down. He pushed himself up along the wall, then faced O'Neill.

"I have a question for you, O'Neill," began Ethan, his voice incredibly steady for what he just went through. "Has any professor held a meeting with your parents?"

O'Neill almost answered, but held his silence.

"I'll take that as a yes," said Ethan. All trace of his panic was gone – coalesced and transformed into pinpoint anger. "Has any professor intimated to your parents what a bona fide psychopath you are?"

O'Neill's face twisted. "Me? Psychopath? _You're_ the one with a criminal record,"

"What did your parents say? Are they in full denial, or do they think it's just a phase that will go away?"

"My father knows that any punishment or 'counselling' I receive is just part of McGonagall's war against him," O'Neill spewed viciously.

Ethan's voice was freezing.

"You need help, O'Neill. You're not right in the head,"

O'Neill's two minions exchanged a troubled look. O'Neill caught them turning to each other and his expression twisted again.

"Shut your fucking mouth, Muggle. I don't need 'help' – it's all of you who are pathetic," Spittle flew from his bared teeth.

"Torture any animals lately? Spiked any drinks?"

Everyone save Ethan and O'Neill stood stunned. O'Neill looked monstrous – Lily thought he would transfigure Ethan again and silently readied a Shield Charm. But the attack didn't come.

"You fucking liar. Say whatever you want, Muggle – fucking words won't save you against me," He whirled around and stalked off, taking his lackeys in tow. Lily cancelled her spell with a wash of relief.

"Was that another lie?" accused James, once O'Neill was out of sight. "About O'Neill torturing animals and spiking drinks?"

Ethan turned around. Their faces to each other were harder than stone. "No – I heard it from Madam Longbottom,"

"Then why haven't we heard about it before?" James demanded.

"The hell is your problem, James?" Lily cut in. "What do you have against Ethan?"

James glared down on her from the stairs. "What's this rubbish I hear about you and this Muggle doing Potions together? Is it true?"

"His name is Ethan, and yes, it's true. What of it?"

"'What of it?'" James's voice rose. "Once again you show zero consideration for others. Torrian, talk to her,"

Torrian had retracted the draconic claws and scales from his arms; he gave Lily a wounded look.

"Lily, I heard you sat next to –" he glanced at Ethan in a wary way. "– to Ethan to ask him questions about his past crimes. Then you asked for his help when you had trouble with a potion. Is that true?"

"Yes, that's what happened," said Lily, feeling like she was a Dark wizard under interrogation. "Next lesson I sat with him again since he's brilliant at Potions. What's wrong with that?"

Torrian's voice was sad, disappointed. "You should have told me about it. I don't like that I had to hear about it from people's gossip,"

Torrian disappointment made her feel horrible. "I-I didn't think it was a big deal," Lily stumbled in her reply. "I-It's just Potions,"

"'Not a big deal'?" James spat furiously. "Do you have any idea what it looks like to others, when you go out of your way to sit with some guy, then start laughing it up in class?"

James's berating sparked her defensiveness. "I'm not dating him – I'm just asking for his help with Potions! What, I can't talk to other guys anymore?"

"It doesn't matter what you think you're doing – you're still making Torrian look bad. Do you know what it was like for him, hearing the whole school yap about you and that Muggle, wondering why he hasn't knocked that Muggle out yet? Did you even spare a thought for your boyfriend?"

"James, hold it –"

"Shut it, Torrian, I'm helping you,"

Lily wasn't oblivious – she always knew how people might react. But she didn't, no – she didn't _want_ to care. As the daughter of Harry and Ginevra Potter, people said a lot of stuff about her anyway and she was tired of paying attention. She just thought Torrian would be able to see what a non-issue it was and dismiss the rumours…but maybe she didn't really think that through from his perspective.

"I'm sorry, Torrian," Lily turned to him remorsefully. "I should have told you,"

Torrian touched her shoulder as a gentle comfort. "It's okay,"

"It's not just about telling him," said James. "You should not have gone near the Muggle at all. Apologize for that,"

Lily's frustration with James sparked again. "His name is Ethan. Stop calling him 'Muggle',"

"He is a Muggle," James said, not condescending to look at Ethan. "Have you forgotten that they're trying to kill us out there?"

"Not necessarily," Ethan spoke up. "They just want all wizards to surrender their wands,"

James was livid. "We will rather die thansurrender our wands,"

"Which brings us to where we are," Ethan said flatly.

"Ethan's on our side," Lily pointed out. "You heard McGonagall – he's helped the Ministry,"

"And you believe that?" James mocked. "What else can he say when he's surrounded?"

Lily couldn't believe how unreasonable her brother was being – and he always accused her of not using her head. "He practically saved Hugo and Rose's lives! Have you forgotten _that?_ "

"Don't exaggerate. At most, they were only going to throw them into Hogsmeade. And it was Torrian who stopped that, not this Muggle," James glanced at Ethan with a look of pure disgust, like the sight of him physically curdled his stomach. "Don't be fooled by his clever words. He's a liar, a bully, a crook and a traitor. The lowest scum Mugglekind has to offer. If he were a wizard, our father would have thrown him in prison by now. Not even O'Neill can claim that,"

"You've got to kidding me," Ethan, his composure breaking. "You're comparing me to _O'Neill_?"

Ethan didn't bat an eye to every other insult, but that arose his indignation. And it should – if what he said about O'Neill was true…it was scary to even think of someone like that free to walk around Hogwarts.

"You're worse than him. O'Neill never committed any actual crimes,"

"Shut up, James," yelled Lily. "You know sod all about Ethan. Everything he's done was to help people,"

"How gullible can you be? You think he hasn't pocketed money for himself? Go ahead, Muggle – lie to us about how you never pocketed anything. I assume you were working a part-time job in between your thefts and blackmail?"

Ethan stood silent for a long moment. "I was thirteen and indicted on a felony. There was no honest job for me,"

"You see?" said James. "It doesn't matter if you help people along the way. A crime is a crime. It just means he thinks he's above the law if he has a reason. What kind of world would we live in if everyone thought like that? People like him always turn bad in the end. And he'll drag everyone he knows down with him. He's already landed you in detention,"

Lily bristled – did he think she was some child that ran in with bad company? "I landed myself in detention, thank you very much,"

"I don't want you getting pulled into whatever nonsense is surrounding this guy," said James, staring down at Ethan with deepest loathing. "I don't care what the Ministry and McGonagall have planned for you, Muggle. But in my opinion, you belong in a jail cell,"

Lily only saw such pure hate from James when she saw him reading the Prophet or listening to the Wireless, raging powerlessly over every Muggle victory. But now he had someone he could hate up close.

"You've never been convicted, have you? You think you can run away forever, hide behind _us_ for your own benefit. But you will get what you deserve in the end, one way or another. And I will not have you endanger my family along the way," James stepped down from above and bore down on Ethan, two years older and a head taller. "So Stay. Away. From Lily."

Ethan did not shy away at James's approach. He only stared back, and slowly grew a snide smile.

"You seem awfully confident that I'm some kind of time bomb that will ruin others as I get what's coming to me," Ethan's voice was eerily calm. "If only justice did come so easily. Then we wouldn't need to have this conversation. And I wouldn't have found my way into this godforsaken school,"

"But that's not the world we live in. One day, if you're ever important enough, you'll find out that justice isn't as easy as it looks from your little soapbox. I sincerely hope _you_ don't ruin the lives of everyone you know when you fall apart,"

Ethan left up the stairs into the Entrance Hall. James stared after his back with a murderous look. Torrian simply stood speechless. Lily ran up the stairs after Ethan. She looked back and waited to make sure James wasn't following after her. She then caught up beside Ethan as he went up the Grand Staircase.

"Ethan, are you okay? Any body aches?"

"I'm fine," He spoke curtly.

"You sure?"

"I was turned into a toad and nearly crushed. Apparently that's worth a week's suspension to you wizards,"

Lily had witnessed pranks of others being transfigured, but never experienced such a harrowing thing herself. A part of her always found it funny, but then she never saw a student try to crush another before.

"O'Neill will get more than that, I swear. We'll report it to a professor later. But first we should go to Madam Longbottom, to check if James restored you properly,"

"I can do that myself,"

"I'll come with you," She said, pleading in her voice. They continued down the hallway leading to the hospital wing.

"No – your brother's right. You should stop talking to me. It's not fair to your boyfriend,"

Just then, the whole hallway turned cold and dark, all the sconces along the walls simultaneously snuffed out. A subtle but sharp ringing filled Lily's ears, and in her chest arose a primal, irrational sense of dread.

"What's going on?" asked Ethan, looking around.

"It's the Baron," said Lily. "He's angry,"

Lily headed back towards the dungeons; Ethan followed behind her. James and Torrian were no longer at the foot of the stairs – Lily and Ethan returned to the Detention Chamber, the ringing and coldness growing stronger as they approached. The chamber doors were wide open, with James and Torrian standing just inside. Entering past them, Lily spotted O'Neill and Crawford in the middle of the chamber, and hovering high before them was the Bloody Baron, gleaming silver in the darkness.

"You are sick, boy. But there are mental Healers who can help you. They can give you hypnotic suggestions to curb your violent impulses,"

"There is _nothing_ wrong with me!" screamed O'Neill, completely beside himself. "You're just trying to get rid of me! I will _not_ admit myself to a fucking hospital, and no one can make me!"

"I won't allow a ghost to throw baseless accusations at one of my students," declared Crawford, though his voice betrayed a tremor.

" _Your_ students?" roared the Baron. His hair floated as if he were underwater and his voice resounded twice over the cold chamber. "You're not even a teacher. You are a pawn of the Board of Governors, sent here to displace the Headmistress and ruin this school,"

"It is McGonagall and her traitorous Order who is ruining this school," returned Crawford. "Hiring nonhumans, paying house-elves, putting them in official positions, accepting Squibs – and housing a criminal Muggle in our midst,"

"Your prejudices are older than this very school!" The temperature of the chamber dipped lower than on a Highland winter night; Lily could see her breath escaping from her.

"I-I have a written order from the Board!" shouted Crawford, shaking through his robes. "Aidan O'Neill will serve the remainder of his suspension at-home,"

"Not on my unlife," The Baron tightened a fist, and the chamber doors swung shut with a heart-jumping bang. The Baron levelled his ghastly visage on O'Neill. "Don't think this man can protect you, boy. Hurt anyone again, and I will administer my own treatment on you. You will never sleep again until you learn the meaning of repentance,"

"Do anything to him, and you will be exorcised," said Crawford. "The Department of Education decreed that the ghosts are not allowed to haunt staff or students,"

The ringing in Lily's ears rose until it was stinging. The desks and chairs of the chamber rumbled and lifted into the air. Then the sconces along the walls erupted with ethereal blue flame, burning with coldness high into the ceiling.

The Baron's voice rumbled into Lily's freezing bones.

"The Hogwarts ghosts were bound here by the founders themselves – to preserve its principles from the likes of you. All the Exorcists of the Ministry couldn't get rid of me,"

"We'll…we'll see about that!" Crawford drew his wand and turned on the spot – and stumbled over his feet.

"I'm sorry, were you leaving?" said the Baron; he had counter-spelled Crawford's attempt to Disapparate. "If you're going call Exorcists after me, you should at least be part of the battle," The Baron drew his sword from his scabbard and pointed it down at Crawford. "Go ahead, make the distress call. But once you do, the battle starts,"

Another silvery-grey figure zoomed into the chamber from the ceiling – it was Nearly-Headless Nick.

"What's going on here? Geoffrey, what are you doing?" Nick cried, holding up the side of his nearly-severed head.

The Baron kept his sword and eyes trained on Crawford. "Challenging our High Inquisitor to a duel. It is his choice whether to accept or run away,"

"I see," Nick looked down at him. "I would choose the latter if I were you," Nick turned back to the Baron. "I believe you've made your point, Geoffrey, whatever it was,"

The Baron flicked his free hand, and the chamber doors swung open. Suddenly the world turned back to normal: the ringing stopped, the air warmed, the sconces relit with normal fire and the chairs and desks dropped to the ground.

"Begone," spoke the Baron. Crawford turned and strode urgently for the exit, with O'Neill behind him.

"But remember what I said, boy. Seek help before it's too late," said the Baron to O'Neill's back.

O'Neill said nothing, but as he passed by Lily she could see his lips moving in a clear 'Fuck you'.

At first Lily didn't like it, but in the end she was grateful to Nick for stopping the Baron. The Bloody Baron may be an ancient, powerful ghost, but Lily was afraid he wasn't powerful enough. Because the Exorcists were a special division of the Auror Office, and her father was trained in exorcism as well.

"And just like that," said the Baron ominously. "Our school equips another fiend and sets him loose upon the world."

* * *

Being transfigured into an animal could be a fascinating, vastly educational experience, provided that some safety could be guaranteed against predation or being crushed by psychopathic children. When Ethan was transformed into a toad, many static conditions of human experience were changed. His field of view was wider, but less detailed in the centre. He could feel his tongue sitting folded in his much wider mouth. Also, he could breathe through his skin. Still, he would rate being human much higher, and would rather never try the toad experience ever again.

Ethan spent all Sunday morning reading on his bed; needless to say, he did not meet Lily at the library to tutor her on Potions. As lunch time neared its end, Ethan left the common room for the Great Hall. On his way down the Grand Staircase, he felt a hand shove him from the right – Ethan stumbled towards an unguarded ledge where a stairway should be – and collided hard against an invisible barrier.

Something long and hard like a wooden bat swung into the side of his face. He felt his jaw crack and unhinge. Looking up sideways from the floor, Ethan saw only a silhouette of blurriness – a figure rendered nearly invisible by a Disillusionment Charm. Despite the camouflage, Ethan knew who it was from his height and outline. O'Neill raised the invisible rod in his hand and swung down repeatedly – breaking Ethan's wrists as he tried to block, pounding his back as he curled up in defence, smashing his fingers that he used to protect his head. Ethan tried to scream for help, but his words vanished at his throat – a Silencing Charm.

O'Neill's fevered grunts grew louder – his blows came faster, wilder, until he stopped from exhaustion. He ran hastily down the stairwell and out of sight. Ethan gingerly pushed himself up with his elbows and sat up against the invisible barrier. His jaw, wrists, fingers and a few of his ribs were fractured, and also covered in bruises. His head was fine though, which was all that mattered – luckily O'Neill wasn't a professional baseball player, and his jaw absorbed most of the impact.

Ethan realized that there had been a bit of an audience while he was being beaten, how quaint. Five that he could see, watching from different stairs and landings. A pair of Gryffindors came down the stairs, glanced down at him, and kept going. As they passed by him, one of them commented 'Who roughed up the Muggle?' like he was a peculiar mannequin at a store window.

Ethan extracted a Healing Potion from his robes – very painfully with his broken fingers – and uncorked it with his teeth. As Ethan tipped the vial towards his mouth, it exploded in his face. He heard the pair of Gryffindors laughing as they descended the stairs. He could only assume that they were descending though, due to their receding volume and the fact that he was blind. Ethan licked up as much potion as he could from his palms.

 _Oh yeah, they can do that,_ Ethan noted dispassionately, thinking through the pain. _I'll have to keep that in mind in future. Only take the potion out of their line of sight._ If he stopped thinking, he would start feeling, and there was no time for that. He delicately felt over his eyes – yup, that's glass in there, and Ethan didn't dare pull them out himself.

The little amount of Healing Potion he drank was not enough to regenerate a pair of eyes. He had to get to the hospital wing; that was on the first floor, and he was on the second. He shifted his feet towards the downward stairs and made his way down one step at a time.

Halfway down his first flight, someone called to him from behind.

"Ethan?"

It was Scorpius's voice. Ethan heard him walk up in front of him.

"Holy shit," Scorpius gasped. "What happened?"

"Waaahh, arrrgg," replied Ethan. O'Neill's Silencing Charm had faded a while ago, but his throat was now swollen shut from his dislocated jaw.

"You need to go to the hospital wing,"

"Uuh-huuh,"

Scorpius took his arm and led him like an old lady down the stairs. As they landed on the first floor, a voice Ethan didn't recognize cried out, "He's here, madam!"

It was an adult woman's voice, but the strange thing was that it came from the wall beside Ethan – a portrait. Then, in front of Ethan, came the voice of Hannah Longbottom.

"Merlin's beard," Madam Longbottom breathed. "Thank you, portrait. Please inform Neville and direct him to the culprits,"

 _Those Gryffindors will probably brag about their punishments later like a medal of honour_ , thought Ethan.

"Yes, madam,"

"You can let go of him, Scorpius,"

Scorpius released Ethan's arm and suddenly he was levitated to a horizontal position. As if he were on a high-speed stretcher, Ethan felt himself zoom down the path to the hospital wing and eventually lowered on a hospital bed.

Madam Longbottom gave Ethan three injections – one that numbed pain, and two more specialized healing potions for fractures and bruises. She then Vanished the glass shards from his face, righted his jaw, and injected another potion for organ regeneration.

"Goodness gracious…" muttered the matron as she examined him with the stethoscope-like device. "…when I was a student…there were worse injuries, but never something so – so vicious…what is the world coming to…"

"Who did this to you?" Scorpius asked from somewhere to his left.

Ethan's throat had recovered enough for him to speak. "O'Neill, I'm sure of it. But he was under a Disillusionment Charm," The Charm was to ensure that none of the portraits in the school could assuredly identify him.

"O'Neill? But he's supposed to be at home for suspension right now,"

"A perfect alibi then. He rushed down the stairs as soon as he was satisfied. His parents will swear he was at home the whole time,"

"Oh dear…" sighed Madam Longbottom.

Madam Longbottom wrapped his eyes in a bandage, instructed him to rest for half an hour for them to recover, and then retired to her office. Scorpius left, and a few minutes later, returned to the hospital wing to hand him a bowl of beef stew – easy enough to eat while blind.

"Thanks," It was quite considerate of him to have noted that he hadn't had lunch yet.

"You alright?" asked Scorpius, presumably sitting beside him.

"I'm fine – I've been through worse," said Ethan, though it was only somewhat true. This was not his first physical beating, but definitely the most painful. However, mere physical pain was nothing compared to his other experiences.

"You have? That's hard to imagine,"

Eating food while blind was a fascinating exercise – it almost tasted better since he was paying more attention to his sense of smell and taste.

"You're still here," said Ethan, halfway through his stew. "So I guess you want to ask if I'm really a wanted fugitive,"

"Not really. I already heard all about it from Rose, who heard from Lily," Ethan detected a hint of envy in his tone. "If I had access to the Internet, I would check if you really are a famous hacker vigilante, but for now I'll give you the benefit of the doubt,"

"So you're back to best friends with Rose?" asked Ethan.

"No, but we did a patrol together last night, and we talked like normal friends,"

"That's nice,"

"I don't remember telling you I was good friends with Rose before,"

Ethan couldn't properly tell his mood with just his voice. "It was pretty obvious you two had some history. So what do you want to ask?"

Scorpius took a while to answer him. "It's about Iris,"

Ethan sighed internally. He was seriously regretting ever getting involved in this stupid teenage love drama. Living a life relatively free of it was one of the blessings of dropping out of school at thirteen.

"She hasn't been the same since you yelled at her," said Scorpius worriedly. "She tries to act like she's fine, but she's not. She's a lot less talkative, she's spacing out in class, and barely eating. Plenty of her friends and professors have talked to her, told her that what you said wasn't true, but it's not working,"

Ethan finished his stew slowly and laid the bowl aside.

"She'll get over it,"

"No she won't. Some girls are laughing at her behind her back," said Scorpius, his voice getting heated. "You humiliated her – told the whole school that she fancied me, but I'll –" He paused awkwardly. "– never fancy her over Rose. Then you called her a whole list of awful things –"

"Weak, worthless, petty, jealous, vindictive, underhanded, two-faced, attention-seeking, and witch,"

"Which she is _not_ ,"

"If she knew that," said Ethan, "She wouldn't be so upset,"

"You have no idea what she's going through,"

Ethan turned his bandaged, punctured eyes at Scorpius. "I have a very good idea of what she's going through,"

Scorpius was silent a moment, then gave his retort. "But she's not like you. She can't handle being laughed at like this,"

Ethan turned away, staring ahead, even though the view was all the same to him. Guilt had gnawed at him since that day, an aggravation that no potion could heal.

"If you want to cheer her up, you could just confess to her,"

"You know I can't do that," said Scorpius. "I want you to apologize to her. Take back the things you said. In front of witnesses,"

"That won't be enough," Ethan started to muse. The darkness of his vision was starting to grow lighter – it would only be several more minutes before he could see again. His mental vision, however, was whirling; playing out scenario after scenario, searching for one that might alleviate the problem at hand. People were making fun of Iris for two reasons: her humiliation at the hands of a Muggle, and her past treatment of Rose. How could he repair her image from the damage of those crimes?

"An apology is not enough. Not from me. But even then…we need something with…more impact. And you're going to help me, Scorpius,"

Ethan explained his plan. By the time he finished laying it out, he could make out the glow of the hospital wing chandeliers through his eyelids.

"You're mental," uttered Scorpius.

"So where's Lascelles right now?"

"She should be at the Drama Club at this time. Wait, we're doing this _now_?"

Ethan grinned and uncoiled his bandage. "Drama Club, eh? Then this is going to be extra fun."

* * *

It was over. All she had hoped for, gone. Scorpius was the only decent person in the whole school that could have passed her father's screening. He would only accept the best stock for Iris – pure-blood, perfect grades, and a fortune larger than theirs. It might be possible to find another such person overseas, but her father was also vehemently against foreigners. If Iris couldn't win Scorpius, then it was likely she would have to marry someone much older, of her father's choosing. But she already fancied Scorpius long before she realized all that. He was, quite possibly, her only chance at happiness – and that chance was gone now. And it was her fault.

"Moving on then," said Nearly-Headless Nick, floating in a reclining position as if he were seated in a chair. "Next scene, where Prospero forgives all of the murderous schemers on his island. Scenoscope – the entrance of Prospero's cave,"

Sir Nicholas gestured to their projectionist, and he fitted a new glass orb into the Scenoscope, a spindly brass device on a tripod. It projected a new optical illusion onto the stage – a vivid garden of magical flowers and herbs amid an island forest, and in the backdrop, the entrance to a cave carved from the foot of a mountain.

As Sir Nicholas directed the positions and movement of the scene's actors, Iris watched from the audience seats. But she couldn't pay attention to the rehearsal; always, her mind forced her back to that horrible day, when Ethan Chen revealed what a horrible person she was to the whole school. She should never have gone near him; when Iris eavesdropped on Scorpius sharing his suspicions of him to Rose, she had to agree, and wanted to find something worth showing him. She suspected what he might be, but the truth still blew her away – she had no choice but to inform the Headmistress.

She could have ended it there, but then _he_ had to – he had to tell Scorpius about her bullying of Rose. The hurt and disappointment in his face when he spoke to her…she couldn't think straight after that. That Muggle must have exaggerated, made her out as a monster…but even if he did, how far was that from the truth? In one afternoon, her whole life came crashing down, ended because of that Muggle…but it started long ago with herself.

"Right, now let's block the final battle with the ghost Sycorax," said Sir Nicholas. "Spirits, Caliban – spread out upstage as Prospero steps down for the first part of the duel. Caliban, stage left behind Sycorax. Ariel – behind Prospero. Iris, beside him – Iris!"

Iris broke out of her thoughts. For their school play this year, Iris was playing the role of a spirit mimicking the goddess of rainbows – also named Iris. She could have taken the lead female role, but she already did that last year. Currently, she was grateful for taking a minor role.

"Iris, are you all right?" Sir Nicholas turned around, looking concerned.

"Yes. Sorry, Sir Nicholas," Iris stood up and climbed the stage. The illusory garden looked real to her eyes, but her feet passed through the grass like air, and underneath it was still wooden floor.

Taking her position, Iris noticed a few fellow club members whispering in the audience. Since that day, dozens of her friends came to comfort her, but behind her back they traded snide comments about her well-deserved comeuppance. Right now, they probably assumed she was trying to gain sympathy. Ethan was right – all her life she tried so hard to be someone that others adored, but they all saw through her façade. She didn't have any friends – no one who truly knew or cared about her.

As Sir Nicholas instructed them on their movement, the door at the back of the stage room opened, and in entered Scorpius and Rose. Iris's chest constricted.

"Pardon me, Sir Nicholas," said Scorpius, as they came down to the front of the audience seating. "Sorry for the interruption, but the High Inquisitor wanted us to ask you some questions,"

"Questions?" asked Sir Nicholas.

"Um. Your personal details and history. He wondered why the house ghosts have no staff records. If you have any official documents, like a death certificate, the High Inquisitor asked for them,"

Sir Nicholas mused for a moment. "Ah, I see. He wants to know how dangerous we are. Very well – take a break, everyone," He addressed the stage. "Ask away, though I warn you – mine is a rich and storied history,"

"Rose," Scorpius handed a quill and parchment to her from his robes.

"Me?" Rose said uncertainly. "I think you'd be better at this, Scorpius,"

"It's not soul transfiguration, you'll be fine," Scorpius said reassuringly.

It stung Iris's heart to see Rose and Scorpius so comfortable with each other again. Iris and Scorpius were friends first – they knew each other before they even entered Hogwarts. Yet once he met Rose, she and Scorpius were inseparable, and Iris was scrambling to keep up with them. She became friends with Rose, and honestly liked her…until she realized that she was better than her in every way.

"I need to speak to Iris for a bit," said Scorpius, and he ascended the steps of the stage.

Iris cast her thoughts wildly for some reason to run, but drew nothing. The last thing she wanted now was to face Scorpius. He had spoken to her again after that horrible afternoon, urging her to not take Ethan's words to heart…but she had barely replied. He didn't hate her, at least not openly…but she wished that he did. Anything was better than this kindness that she didn't deserve.

"Iris. You all right?" He asked gently.

All of the Drama Club was watching Iris. And Iris's gaze was fixed to the projected flowers by the side of her feet – she couldn't bear to meet Scorpius's eyes. "I'm fine. What is it?"

"I spotted Ethan lurking around outside,"

Iris's breath caught in her throat.

"I think he wants to speak to you," said Scorpius. Iris shuddered at the thought of it.

"If you don't want to speak to him, I can tell him to go away,"

Iris gave a small nod. She was wrong – there was one thing she feared more than facing Scorpius. It was she who revealed that Ethan was a Muggle. He must hate her for all the harassment he has suffered since – she wasn't sure what worse he could do to her, but she had no doubt that he could.

Scorpius nodded back and left. Iris returned to her position on the stage, feeling fortunate that she had avoided a dramatic scene, anything that might be cause for more gossip. But a minute into her rehearsal, her apparent fortune betrayed her.

The door slammed open and Ethan Chen burst into the room. He took in his surroundings as he strode briskly down the aisle with an air of purpose.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Scorpius called angrily, catching up from behind.

Ethan stepped onto the stage and, to Iris's horror, stopped before her.

"I was hoping to speak to you alone, but if people are trying to stop me then I don't care who's listening,"

Iris never expected the next words out of his mouth.

"I'm sorry for what I said to you," His resolute bearing caved in and became repentant. "It was uncalled for. I was upset, and it made me use whatever words I could come up with to hurt you. But I don't believe those things of you, and I'm sorry for the pain it's caused you since. I know this is much to ask, but I hope you can forgive me,"

Mouths fell open all over the room – even Sir Nicholas, over five hundred years dead, was stunned. This…this didn't make sense. He wanted _her_ forgiveness? Was…was this part of some scheme of his? Or a cruel joke?

"You're right; that _is_ much to ask," said Scorpius, stepping beside Iris. "After what you did, you think she can forgive you just like that?"

Several club members chimed in their agreement.

"That's right!"

"Get lost, Muggle! Iris doesn't want you here!"

"Just look at him – not a shred of guilt on his face!"

Ethan paid no attention to the heckling around him.

"I know this seems sudden to you, but I have my reasons. I am truly sorry,"

Ethan dropped to his knees and sunk to a kowtow position: his head bowed so low it touched the ground. Iris gaped soundlessly – no one else appeared to recognize what the position was, but they knew it was humiliating. Iris's mind was a blank. She didn't know how to respond – how was she _supposed_ to respond? She looked to everyone for some clue.

"Don't forgive him, Iris, he doesn't deserve it! He's a hardened criminal!" cried Sycorax.

"Kick him!" shouted Prospero.

The faces around her were greedy, cruel – they were raring to go up to Ethan and step on him.

"I will do anything you ask to prove my sincerity," said Ethan, his face planted in the illusory grass. "I'll do anything you want until you can forgive me,"

She turned to Sir Nicholas, but he didn't notice her plea for guidance; he was staring at Ethan thoughtfully, rubbing his goatee. She looked to Scorpius; he gave her an assuring nod and addressed Ethan.

"I don't know what you're playing at, Ethan. But there's nothing you can possibly do to earn Iris's forgiveness. Just get your disgusting self out of here, and never show your face to Iris again,"

Iris had never heard Scorpius speak so harshly before – it almost didn't seem right. Did the things Ethan say to her look worse from other people's perspective? It was hard to imagine.

Ethan slowly stood up, and Iris felt a chill – the bridled anger was back in his black eyes.

"If that's so, then you should never show your face to Iris as well,"

"What?" Scorpius leaned back.

"All this is as much your fault as it is mine," Ethan declared loudly. The acoustical shell of the stage threw his voice across the entire room. "Long before I showed up, Iris has tormented Rose, because of you. And you, aware of it all, did absolutely nothing,"

"Wait a minute, this isn't –" Scorpius stopped, forming his response. "I didn't do nothing. I spoke to Iris,"

Ethan's voice flattened Scorpius's. "You mean you half-assed it. You didn't tell her off like you should have. You didn't want the responsibility of hurting her. You'd rather watch them duke it out over you. You liked the idea, didn't you? Or maybe you wanted Iris to hurt Rose, as revenge for her friend-zoning you,"

Scorpius seized the front of Ethan's robes. "You. Shut the fuck up," He hissed.

"Or what?" challenged Ethan. "You'll jinx me? TK me through the window? You wizards draw your wands the moment you hear something you don't like. Maybe you _should_ have them taken away,"

Three club members drew their wands. Sir Nicholas flung his hand, and the wands shot into the ceiling and stuck there.

"There will be no violence in my stage room!" shouted Sir Nicholas. "Boy, if you're here just to stir trouble, then get out of my theatre,"

"I'm here for repentance, sir," Ethan said emphatically, still held by Scorpius. "But there's more than one person here who owes it,"

Was he referring to Scorpius? But that was ridiculous – he wasn't responsible for what she did. If anyone else owed repentance, it was her.

"Don't listen to him, Scorpius," said Rose, beside Sir Nicholas. "He's winding you up. It's what he does,"

Scorpius let go of Ethan's robes and stepped back. Ethan grinned in his face.

"It's time to own up, Scorpius. Do you have the courage or not?"

After a long silence, Scorpius turned to Iris.

"I'm sorry, Iris. I should have been clearer with you. I let all this happen," he said with his head bowed.

Iris was so dumbfounded she thought she had lost her voice. Scorpius can't give in like this – he was letting the Muggle humiliate him. If he didn't change his mind immediately, he was going to become a laughing stock just like her and Farley.

"So Iris, say your last words to Scorpius," said Ethan.

Iris's speechlessness finally shattered. "What?"

"Scorpius has admitted that he started all this, and we've already established that we've done can't possibly be forgiven. The only reparation we can make is to never speak to you again,"

Panic flooded her to the tips of her fingers.

"That – that doesn't make any sense! He didn't even do anything!"

"Inaction is just as guilty as action. Those who deny it are just cowards trying to absolve themselves of culpability, making excuses for their apathy,"

"Wait a minute," Rose interjected. "Culpability is not so simple as that. Scorpius didn't intend to hurt Iris. It just happened – an accident,"

"Of course you would make that defence," said Ethan darkly. "Because you're guilty in this fiasco as well,"

Ethan continued through everyone's bewilderment. "For months, Iris gave you shit and you didn't fight back. You asked her once or twice what her deal was and she just ran over you. You had the advantage, you know. It wouldn't have been difficult for anyone else to put Iris in her place. But you couldn't even manage that. I call that criminal incompetence,"

This was ludicrous. Rose was the _victim_ – and he was blaming her as well? Yet Rose didn't defend herself – she just stood and took his ridiculous abuse.

"You could have ended this nonsense a lot sooner if you had just one vertebrae of backbone. Honestly, it's just pathetic. I don't understand why Scorpius chose you over Iris. Am I right, Iris?"

"What?" Iris said breathlessly. Ethan was being utterly illogical; he had to be messing with her, but what on earth did he want from her?

"There can't a crime without a victim. Rose was practically asking for a lesson about asserting herself. You were doing her a favour. Better that she learn now than in the future at a higher cost, am I right?"

How dare he throw such twisted thinking at her, assume that she felt the same? She would _never_ think such a thing – not seriously. Iris couldn't take it anymore. She screamed into the stage floor, so loud and shrilly that her throat stung.

" _Shut – Shut up!_ " She didn't care about anything anymore – all she wanted was this agony in her to end.

"First you attack Scorpius, then you attack Rose. What about _me_? I'm the one who bullied Rose – _I'm_ the one who outed you as a Muggle. _What the hell are you doing?!_ "

Ethan looked at her with a strange, inscrutable countenance.

"I'm just assigning blame where blame is due. And it is everywhere," He turned back to the audience. "There are people around the school, in this very room, who think they can mock you when they have no idea of what really happened," Ethan stalked downstage, pointing at and berating the furious audience. "Criminals are made, not born. They are taught by their environment, pushed by circumstance. All criminals are victims as well. I'm sure you had a reason to think what you did was necessary,"

"What right do they have to judge you? What right does anyone have to judge the wrongs that we do, when they too are criminals? How many people can you blame for every wrong committed? Aren't we all accomplices to every crime, guilty by our apathy and incompetence? Those who deny it are just afraid of the label, but what is there to fear? We are in big company,"

"Even if that's true," yelled Iris. "Which it is _not_ – what does that have to do with _this?!_ I'm still the one most at fault,"

"I'm not just talking about you, Iris, I'm talking about me as well. I ask for forgiveness, but the world won't give it. Two and a half years ago, from just one mistake, I was branded forever. What choice did I have but to become the criminal they thought I was? You don't understand yet, Iris, but one day you will. We are the same, you and I,"

"No, _no, fuck you!_ " screamed Iris. "I am _nothing_ like you!" Suddenly, a tunnel opened amidst her blank confusion. She found her path forward – how to free herself from this madness, and a small chance to dispel the evil before her.

"I know what I did to Rose was horrible – but I won't let anyone else take blame for it. I did it, it was _my_ choice. You keep going on about others not taking responsibility – but you're the one blaming everyone else! Is that how you justify the things you've done? Why you became a criminal? That's just whining, like a baby! Who cares about environment, or circumstance, or what other people could have done – it was _your_ life, your decision! If you can't own the things you do wrong, then you can't own anything! So whatever you think you're doing, just, just stop,"

Iris heaved her breaths, exhausted in heart and lung. The whole world was unbearably silent. Any moment now, Ethan would make his rebuttal and destroy her – of course he would, she was no match for him. But the silence stretched longer and it didn't come. Iris looked up; Ethan looked contrite, defeated, staring at the grass.

"I was only trying to help you by diffusing the blame," he said feebly. "I didn't see how…stupid that was. I think you're right,"

"Help?" Iris echoed. "Why would you even want to help me after what I did to you?"

"Why? There is only one reason for such a thing,"

A reason came to her mind, but it was ludicrous – no, flagrantly insane. "What? No. What?" she stammered.

Scorpius's voice re-entered the scene. "Wait… _seriously?_ "

"I'm afraid I've become lost," said Sir Nicholas, his hand frozen over his chin. "What is the reason?"

"You… _Iris?"_ said Scorpius, incredulous.

"Yes," Ethan replied steadily. "I didn't realize it until after I hurt Iris," He turned away from the audience and addressed her gently. "I felt a connection between us when we first met. Like we could communicate at an unspoken level. I think we have a lot in common,"

A cold wind swept over her skin, giving her goose bumps. The air grew thinner with each person reaching the same realization, due to the drawing of air through their slackened jaws.

"What a twist," remarked Sir Nicholas under his breath. He turned to the projectionist. "You've been recording this, right? What do you mean 'no'? Then start recording!"

"Iris, I know it must be difficult to trust me after what I've done, after the fright and betrayal you've suffered before, but I hope with time you'll give me the chance to prove myself," Ethan sunk to one knee facing her. "If there's anything you need my help in, don't hesitate to ask. All of my being is at your disposal,"

"You…you have some nerve," Scorpius marched before Ethan, standing between him and Iris. "You're delusional if you think Iris will ever go out with _you_ ,"

"I'm well aware of that," said Ethan, standing up. "But that does not change my feelings. I would be content just to support her from afar,"

"You'd be nothing but a thorn in her side. Just sod off already,"

"I don't want to hear any criticism from someone who couldn't appreciate the beauty that was right in front of them. You had your chance, but you squandered it pining after Rose Weasley. Iris deserves someone who loves her for who she is,"

The use of the 'L' word sent the whole room on tilt. Iris felt rather like the stage was rocking under her feet.

"If I were a wizard, I would challenge you to a duel right now to stay out of my way," said Ethan.

"If you were a wizard, I would accept your duel, but since you're not, I'm not going to thrash someone who can't even put up a fight,"

Nothing made a lick of sense anymore. Iris was actually starting to feel faint.

"I don't think Iris needs you to speak for her. She can tell me what she wants herself," Ethan side-stepped Scorpius. "Iris, before anything else, I need an answer, and you must look me in the eyes: do I have a chance?"

It made her physically sick, but Iris forced herself to face him. "No. Not on your life. You are the worst –" As she spoke, her voice grew stronger. "– most repugnant, despicable, unreasonable person I have _ever_ met. All of your lies, cruelness, and twisted reasons to justify what you do – I wouldn't date you if my life depended on it. You've done nothing but waste our time here, so please –" She pointed to the door. "Just go,"

Ethan's expression fell weary, pensive. "I understand. If that's what you want. But this isn't over. I will not give up my feelings this easily,"

At a mild pace, Ethan descended from the stage and went up the aisle of the audience. Iris was afraid to feel relief, until the doors closed behind and several seconds passed in wordless astoundment.

"Well done, Iris," congratulated Sir Nicholas, with a short bow. "In all my years, I have never seen such a brilliant riposte. You sure told that villainous cur what for,"

"That's right, Iris," added Scorpius. "You beat him at his own game,"

Sir Nicholas started clapping, and the whole room followed suit, with some cheering from her fellow club members. Iris had never been so confounded in her life. Even Rose had joined in the clapping, albeit a little uncertainly. A horrible guilt lurched in her chest; she was emotionally exhausted, but there was still something she had to do.

Iris dropped off the stage and rushed up to Rose. Rose was a little surprised by her haste, but did not retreat from her.

"Rose, I'm so, so sorry," Tears were flowing down her cheeks before she noticed them. "I was awful to you – everything is my fault,"

"It's okay," said Rose, worried by her tears. "It was only teasing. It was never a big deal,"

Iris continued spilling her heart out. "I was just so jealous of you – and you were already dealing with so much –"

"It's okay," Rose repeated, touching her arm in comfort. "You don't need to say any more. I forgive you,"

Rose was an angel, kinder than Iris deserved. "Thank you. Thank you. If there's anything I can do to make amends…"

"Well," And Rose started to blush. "I'd like it if we could be friends again,"

Iris almost choked on her happiness. Rose shyly opened her arms up for a hug, and Iris plunged into it, weeping over her shoulder. Rose's warmth seeped into her heart, and vanquished the pain inside. At that moment, she cared nothing of what other people thought; as long as Rose forgave her, no whispers or snide comments could harm her. And once Rose and Iris were friends again, maybe she would learn to forgive herself.

She didn't know how good of a friend she could be to Rose, but she would do her utmost from now on, not just out of guilt, but also out of genuine love for her. One thing Iris knew for certain though, was that she would never again allow herself to become anything like that horrible, hateful Muggle.


	14. Chapter 14 - Muggle Studies

Chapter 14 – Muggle Studies

Ethan couldn't speak to Timothy anymore – or anyone for that matter – so he was unable to hear any gossip which might inform him how well his plan had gone. The best means he had of acquiring information was picking up snide remarks as he passed by students that scowled at him.

What he found out was good to hear – people praised Iris for her brave apology to Rose and her scorching putdown of the big bad Muggle, delivering him a taste of his own foul medicine. However, that alone was not enough to restore balance to the universe. His melodramatic confession to Iris served to let everyone know that she and she alone had power over him, and helped to assuage those that so wanted to wipe the arrogance off his face.

Ethan entered his Muggle Studies classroom and took his seat against a tidal wave of despising glares. He picked a desk at the back, as far away as possible from Lily, Jessamine and Delfina, seated in the right middle.

Lily did not smile or wave to him, as she shouldn't. She simply stared after him with a strange, puzzled look, before turning back to her friends. It would seem that she had made up with them now, which put Ethan at ease – another instance of damage wrought by his corrupting presence had been restored to order.

At the nine o'clock bell, Crawford stalked his stout, angry self into class. He was a grouchy character before, but since becoming High Inquisitor, Crawford was perpetually irritable.

"Hand in your essays from last week," said Crawford from the blackboard, in his usual surly drawl. Crawford didn't bother greeting his class; even Scrooby at least dragged one out half-heartedly.

Last Wednesday, Crawford was missing from class, so they had a free double period, but given a reading assignment and an essay to write. That was the day after Ethan was outed as a Muggle, so Ethan guessed Crawford's absence had was in some way related.

"Since you read chapter eight last week, I'll be covering the next chapter today: the Muggle side of World War II,"

Crawford tapped a projector-like device at his table and it shone a projection onto the blackboard, as sharp and clear as on a computer screen. The first image was a black-and-white photograph of the aftermath of a strategic bombing attack: a street of rubble, a pillar of smoke in the background, children picking through the ruins of their homes. With each flick of Crawford's wand, the projector changed to the next photo; grisly wounded soldiers, skeletal prisoners of war, a line of comfort women, and a giant mushroom cloud.

"The largest, bloodiest war in history, started for no reason other than pure greed and evil," said Crawford. "The Axis powers, believing themselves superior people, invaded their neighbouring countries under the pretence that it was their right and destiny to unite the land and rule over the inferior races,"

' _No reason_ _other than pure greed and evil'…how stupidly short-sighted._ Who is this guy, and where did he come from? Ethan heard that Crawford started teaching at Hogwarts about three months before the war started. He had to have been sent by the Ministry or the Board of Governors; McGonagall couldn't have taken on this hateful fool willingly.

"Never content with what they have, Muggles are a greedy people; equal to, if not worse than goblins. You only need to look to the countless wars Muggles have fought for proof. In contrast, wizards have never fought over land or resources,"

 _Maybe that's because wizards just take Muggle land and resources without them even noticing,_ thought Ethan.

Crawford went into detail about the root causes of World War II, in particular the ideology of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. Nothing he said was factually inaccurate, but the way he put it, and the things he omitted, grated Ethan.

Crawford's coverage of World War II focused almost entirely on the atrocities committed by every nation. With every spiteful, prejudiced line, Ethan grew increasingly incensed. He had retorts and corrections for every line, but held his tongue, allowing Crawford to pollute the class with his misinformation.

Crawford switched the projector to a photo of people lining up in a market square, with Star of David badges visible on their coats.

"Here we have Jews awaiting deportation from a ghetto to an extermination camp," said Crawford, in the middle of his coverage of the Holocaust. "Approximately three million Jews were systematically murdered at these camps, half of the six millions Jews murdered by the Germans,"

Crawford, with the aid of several more slides, detailed the horrors of the Nazi extermination camps, from the squalid living conditions, to the manual labour under disease and starvation, and to the coldly methodical executions.

Crawford showed them a new photograph – a mass grave. A long, straight canal dug in the earth, carpeted by naked, lying bodies. A few students shifted uncomfortably, some looking away.

"Branding, segregation, imprisonment, and execution. This is what awaits us if we let the Muggles win," Crawford said gravely.

 _Laying it on a little thick there, don't you think?_ The current internment camp in Enfield left a lot to be desired, but it wasn't an extermination camp as far as he knew. Ethan wondered if this lesson was propaganda instructed by the Ministry, but he hadn't heard any word of such a thing from teachers, students, or during his time in the Ministry.

"Now we move on to the Americans,"

Crawford went over a range of war crimes committed by the U.S. armed forces during the war; civilian massacres, executing enemy soldiers because it was too much bother to take them to a POW camp, bombarding French towns they were supposed to be liberating, looting and raping those they freed – Crawford gave very specific cases and details, when he had just glossed over the more major events of the war. As Crawford went on, few classmates shot Ethan contemptuous glares, as if he had a hand in those war crimes committed over seventy-seven ago.

"Savage, selfish, irresponsible," Crawford said with scorn. "There were no exceptions. Even amongst their own kind, Muggles only care about their own, and never fail to trample anyone beneath them,"

"Japan had made several overtures of peace to the Allies, but the Americans didn't care. They wanted to show the world their terrible new invention. It is called…a nuclear weapon," He revealed the slide of the mushroom cloud again. "And it is a weapon more evil than the darkest magic. A single bomb can devastate an entire city – the first bomb killed over fourteen hundred thousand, the second killed eighty thousand. And the Muggles have only developed more powerful bombs since,"

Ethan noted a few students mouthing the casualty numbers.

"Fourteen hundred thousand? That's like a hundred war sorceries," Someone in front of him whispered to his friend.

"A nuclear weapon does more than destroy with explosive power," said Crawford. "It also spreads an incurable poison. This poison lingers over the land, leaving it uninhabitable. Those who somehow survive the explosion only suffer a more painful death from the poison. Even if the poison was not fatal, they will still die from cancer created by the poison. Any child born to a victim will suffer incurable birth defects. Healing magic is of no use to anything inflicted by nuclear poison," Crawford showcased several slides of radiation burns and radiation poisoning to illustrate his description.

"When we eventually occupy a large portion of their territory, the Muggles will undoubtedly choose to scorch the earth with these heinous weapons – if the Muggles weren't in possession of such a devastating weapon, this war would have been over a long time ago,"

There were so many things wrong with that line that it physically nauseated Ethan. His patience was wearing out.

"We have an American Muggle here with us," Crawford leered across the classroom at Ethan. "Your people were responsible for the worst human disaster in world history. What do you have to say about it?"

Ethan stared back at Crawford, trying to get a read of his intentions. Was it to make a point in his lesson? Was it personal? How much of each?

"Did you hear me? I asked you a question, boy," Crawford snarled at Ethan's silence.

Ethan would have kept his silence just to irk him, but didn't want him to think he conceded to his unreasonable rhetoric. "I'm not a World War II historian, so I don't believe I'm qualified to judge whether the use of nuclear weapons on Japan was justified or not,"

"But you were taught by your Muggle schools about how justified your country was,"

He was trying to get Ethan to say that Muggle schools taught its students the justification of mass murder. Ethan was not going to make it easy.

"I'm afraid I don't remember much of my middle school gifted program. And I dropped out of high school in half a year, so I didn't get to covering World War II in social studies,"

"Don't pretend you don't remember at least a bit of it," said Crawford menacingly. "You were taught that it was justified, weren't you?"

Smarter men might have thought this teacher wasn't worth the trouble, but Ethan never sat well with allowing idiocy to run amuck unchallenged. He was probably going to eat a day or two of detention – so he might as well as enjoy this putdown as much as possible.

"I don't know. Do you think the Ministry of Magic was justified in the way they crushed the Goblin Rebellions?"

Crawford's snarl twisted. "What does that have to do with anything?" He spat.

Ethan relished his agitation.

"My HOM textbook seems a little biased in favour of the Ministry. Lots of examples of the goblins killing, taking hostages – no more than a vague reference to the centuries of social-economic suppression and discrimination the goblins suffered under wizard rule,"

"The Ministry was completely justified in what they did," declared Crawford. "What does this have to do with my question?"

"You really can't see the connection?" said Ethan with haughty astonishment. "I guess they'll let anyone teach in this school. Well, you're trying to prove that the U.S. selects its teaching material to put itself in a good light. You were going to use that to substantiate your own biased assertion that every faction in World War II was, without qualification, just pure evil. To say nothing of whether or not that is the case, if you can judge all of Mugglekind based on just one war, then I should be able to do the same for wizardkind. And if you ask me, I haven't seen or read anything to suggest that wizards are any better than Muggles in terms of prejudice and savagery,"

The classroom became tight with silence, and Crawford's face was even tighter.

"What's the matter, professor? Should I repeat myself?" said Ethan with an evil smile. "Perhaps I was speaking too fast. I noticed you have a predilection towards…shorter sentences, and drawing your words out. Maybe I should try again at a pace you can follow,"

Crawford's jowls quivered and his neck purpled – Ethan thought his head might fly off like a champagne cork. Then Crawford bared his teeth with a look of vindictive triumph.

"You're expelled,"

Ethan considered himself someone very difficult to shock, but this managed to clock him. It was a little sudden.

"I already sent the necessary documents. I only need to wait for it to be approved at the Board of Governor's next meeting. After this Saturday, you will no longer be allowed in this school. This week will be your last,"

A bubble of panic grew inside Ethan; he tried to supress it, at least from showing on the surface.

"Why am I being expelled?" Ethan asked, forcing his tone flat.

"For repeated disruptive behaviour, inflicting undue distress to other students and disturbing the school peace,"

Absolutely ludicrous. That wasn't reasonable grounds for expulsion off the bat. No, this had another reason. Most likely, it was connected to his request to join the Order. He decided to announce it during detention, thinking that word of it spreading would offer him some protection – he should have considered Crawford's reaction, found out about his vendetta against the Order before taking action – there was no excuse for his ignorance and carelessness.

"Don't I get an expulsion hearing?"

"No," uttered Crawford with a smirk. "Expulsions from the High Inquisitor require no hearing, only a report with Board approval,"

It was almost unbelievable how instantly Ethan's state of affairs had plummeted.

"McGonagall won't be able to protect you once you're out of here," said Crawford with glee. "This isn't official yet, but the Board has decided unanimously to hand McGonagall the Order of Suspension. Come Saturday, I will be Headmaster of Hogwarts,"

The class breathed in hushed gasps at this news. But it was of tangential importance to Ethan.

"Do you know," Ethan pressed severely. "What will happen to me if you kick me out?"

"It's none of my business," replied Crawford. "But if McGonagall's trying so hard to prevent it, I want to see it happen,"

Once Ethan was kicked out of Hogwarts, his days of relative comfort were over. Harry Potter could shelter him somewhere else, somewhere undetectable by the Ministry. That meant either an underground bunker, or someplace encased in adamantine. But Potter would have to visit him regularly to feed him, and that meant covering his tracks against Lowther and his Spooks. And it would be much easier for Lowther to break in and kill him without sparking any controversy. There wasn't even a guarantee he could make the transition to the new hiding spot before Lowther and his Spooks jumped him and Potter again. It had only six days since Tuesday, and he was dead again.

"Now, back to my lesson," Crawford returned to expounding on the heartless cruelty of the United States. Ethan didn't hear a thing he said. He simply sat, wracking his mind for a solution, some way to stay in Hogwarts, but there was nothing in his feeble power he could do.

* * *

Ethan lay sprawled upon the shore of the Great Lake, his head propped on his schoolbag and staring at the clouds. Overt harassment had declined since he voiced his intention to join the Order, so he thought he would risk laying on the grounds on few times before his expulsion. People were still levitating his food away from, so he had gone to the Great Hall early to pick up a sandwich and leave. Yet once he lay down, he was overcome with a great ennui that dulled out his hunger. He decided to contemplate the sky a little before eating.

His thoughts drifted towards woeful, piteous territory, which he despised in himself but couldn't hold down forever. _What am I doing with myself?_ Batted around by forces greater than himself, his feeble play for some degree of control only backfiring…interfering with the lives of others, with no guarantee that his methods actually worked. All the mistakes of his past had led him to this point, this utterly lost, helpless point.

What was the point of his life now? What was the purpose in his creation, and how did he screw up? At his core, he just wanted to be _someone,_ but with his sins dragging him down, and his hopeless predicament, such a prospect was bleak, especially in the vastness of this unforgiving world. If he had no chance of making a difference, maybe he should just walk into the lake and offer himself to the Giant Squid that supposedly lived in there. Literally no one would mourn him. For all his arrogant bluster, that was the truth of how little he meant to the world.

His time as a mind slave in the Ministry was his lowest. When he was under domination, he was dulled of thought or emotion, a shadow of a living thing. Whenever he managed to break free, all he felt was despair at his inescapable lot; forced into working against his own kind, a monotonous soulless trudge through each day, sunlight and fresh air turning into a hollow memory. Killing himself seemed the logical thing to do, but he'd be lying if he said he did it out of rational calculation.

Now almost a month free of the Imperius Curse, it was hard to believe he had ever gotten that low. Ethan suspected that prolonged time under _Imperius's_ influence must have numbed his capacity to feel, so much that he became perfectly amenable to killing himself, something that before, he had always considered cowardly. Right now, he was only making an effort for the fraction of a chance that his life could turn around. If he ever decided to end his life again, he would want it to at least be a rational decision, when he was truly at the end of his life's purpose.

Something flapped and landed beside his head. Ethan turned – it was a raven, just a couple feet from his face. Ethan held still, not wanting to scare it away, but also wondering if it might peck his eye out. He had not spotted any ravens around the school before – maybe it was someone's pet.

Ethan examined it from beak to talon with some wonder, having never seen a live raven so closely before. It was quite a pretty specimen, tall as his forearm, sleek with matte black plumage like a smooth stone. It tilted its head at him, watching him with cool, enigmatic interest and gave a deep throaty caw.

"Sorry, I'm not dead yet. Try again this Saturday,"

The raven cast its gaze down and up his length. Ethan guessed that it had landed for the sandwich beside him. Ethan slowly reached to his other side, unwrapped his sandwich and presented it to the raven.

The raven reared back and shook its head. Ethan was rather disappointed.

"Don't like sandwiches? Why'd you come down then? Wait –" Did that raven just shake its head at him?

The raven transformed into Rose Weasley. Ethan sprung off the ground with a yelp and landed painfully back on his tailbone.

Rose half-stifled a giggle, politely covering her mouth. Ethan's momentary wariness was immediately soothed by the sight of it.

"Very funny. Didn't take you for a joker," Ethan said nonchalantly, looking up at her.

The smile on her face lingered as she stopped laughing. "I didn't really plan it – I just spotted you while flying,"

"You often transfigure yourself into a raven and go flying?"

"Well, occasionally, yes. It's a calming pastime for after I'm done studying,"

To Ethan's surprise, Rose sat down beside him, with her knees together. Ethan sat up properly.

"Is it an Animagus transformation?"

Rose shook her head, her short, wavy red hair bouncing lightly. "No – I've researched on it, thought about becoming one. But the process…was a little too risky for me,"

"I see," said Ethan. "Still, that's pretty amazing – flying for a pastime," It definitely sounded better than playing 'Touch the Willow'.

"It's not that great, really," said Rose modestly. "Um, anyway, I've been meaning to talk to you,"

"Really?" Ethan might have expected this, but not so amicably. "Is this going to take long?"

"Hmm, I don't know,"

Ethan looked behind them over the school grounds. It was empty save for the two of them, since most would be at the Great Hall at this time. But that would change soon as the first people finished eating. "Then you should put up an Imperturbable Barrier, so no one sees us talking,"

"Right. _Imperturbilis,_ " Rose waved her wand and a bluish dome of light encapsulated them. With a little added waving, the dome turned invisible, so they retained their unobstructed view of the lake. There was only about a foot of space between the two of them. If Ethan cared one iota about romantic scenarios, he might be getting nervous right now, but since he didn't, he wasn't.

"I'm sorry for what happened," said Rose, looking out at the lake.

"What?" Ethan responded in surprise.

"Everything that happened between Scorpius, Iris and myself. I'm sorry you got involved in it. I'm at least partially responsible for everything that's happened to you because of it,"

"No you're not," Ethan said firmly. "You _do_ know that what I said to you at the Drama Club was complete bullshit, right?"

"Yes, I did realize that. Also I thought Scorpius was acting strange, so I got him to tell me about what you two had planned,"

"As long as you keep that to yourself, my performance won't be for nothing,"

Rose contemplated for a few moments before speaking again. "Do you know any other way of doing things?"

"Not really. You know I'm a tactical player – high risk, high reward,"

"I can't agree with all the deception you employ in your methods," Rose's tone was as if she was lodging a formal complaint for an unsatisfactory service. "How is anyone supposed to trust you? Scorpius is still upset that you didn't fill him in on your entire plan,"

"I don't need people to trust me," Ethan replied flippantly. "You ask why I had to do things the way I did. I could have just apologized to Lascelles, and I could have just brought the three of you together in a room, to have a heart-to-heart chat about your feelings and sort out your issues. But that wasn't my only goal; I also wanted to restore Lascelles's reputation as far as possible. If you and Lascelles simply made up in a private reconciliation, people might not trust that Lascelles had really turned over a new leaf. People needed to see her apologize. People needed a show. Same reason I confessed my undying love for her,"

Rose nodded to his explanation, which made Ethan suspect that she already understood the rationale beforehand.

"You know, Iris only made fun of me a few times, and it was never so bad, at least compared to threats I got when my parents left. But you really blew that matter out of proportion,"

"Hey, teenage romance is serious business,"

"Still, you didn't have to do all that," Rose said softly. "Scorpius only asked you to apologize,"

"Well, I'm sorry for the distress I caused, but I was confident the three of you could take it,"

"That's not what I meant…but okay. And thank you," Rose faced him and lifted her lips in a small smile. "For everything,"

It took longer than it should have for Ethan to formulate his reply. "No problem," He said uncomfortably. It wasn't just the fact that he was being thanked, but the unadorned sincerity of it, that tripped his mental poise.

"So apparently you and Lascelles used to be friends. Are you getting along again?" Ethan was genuinely curious at how these mended relationships worked.

"We're fine, though I do hope she stops being apologetic soon. Umm…" Rose paused tentatively. "How are you getting with your friends?"

"Friends?" echoed Ethan, baffled. "Who are you talking about?"

"Timothy and Varun,"

"Oh. Nope. They've stayed clear of me since my outing. Talking to me is not a good idea for anyone,"

Rose bowed her head close to her knees. "You haven't been to the Chess Club since then either,"

"I'd just ruin the atmosphere. The Chess Club is for good, hardworking nerds like yourself. I'm afraid I don't qualify,"

Rose paused for a moment, then looked up at him. "I heard from Lily that you were teaching her Potions,"

Rose and Lily certainly were nosy about each other; Lily had first approached him in Potions class to ask about his relation to Rose.

"Not anymore," said Ethan.

"I see. Well, I appreciate you helping her,"

"No problem,"

"She told me about what you said you did in the past – hacking vigilantism. Is that true?"

Ethan's claims of his past had spread across the school, but most students have dismissed it as self-aggrandizing fiction. "Well I don't have any proof to show you, so believe what you will,"

Rose looked about to say more, but then decided against it. A silence fell between them, a rather awkward silence rocked by the lapping of the lake upon the shore. Ethan wondered when Rose would take her leave. They had already discussed all outstanding issues between them; she should be making an excuse to leave any moment now.

"Had lunch yet?" Ethan asked.

"No, I usually have lunch later," Rose replied and continued staring at the lake.

Ethan took up his sandwich again and debated internally on whether he should eat it – one side of it had been sitting on the grass since Rose surprised him. The Hogwarts grounds were impeccably maintained, the grass bright and shiny like a green apple. But simply looking spotless did not make it so.

"Do you mind dropping the barrier for a second?"

"Umm, no," Rose dispelled the Imperturbable Barrier around them. Ethan flung his sandwich into the lake.

An enormous pink tentacle flung out of the surface and blocked the sandwich's trajectory. The sandwich dropped into the lake and the giant tentacle fell back with it.

"Oh shit," Ethan gasped.

"Yeah, it does that," said Rose. "Feeding the squid is actually against the rules. But I'll let you off with a warning this time," She said with a joking smile.

Ethan snorted amusedly. "I am touched by your mercy. I don't want to be seen as a troublemaker,"

Rose held back a chuckle and re-erected the barrier. That made Ethan a little curious as to what she still wanted with him.

She eventually broached it. "Um, after what happened at the Drama Club, I went and read a few books on criminal law and normative ethics," Rose retrieved a book from her school satchel – Ethan first thought it was an ancient slab of stone, because it was grey, faded, and two inches thick. "I think I can counter the arguments you made now,"

Ethan looked down at Rose's lap and read the book's cover: _Ethics – Philosophy and Practice in Wizarding Law_. It appeared to be a tomb of very heavy material high above the comprehension level of the average Hogwarts student, capable of putting termites that ate it to sleep.

"Are you serious right now?" said Ethan wide-eyed.

"Yes," Rose thus forwarded her opening argument. "All modern legal systems recognize different modes of culpability in relation to the state of mind of the defendant. To be guilty of a crime, one must possess an intention to commit a criminal act, which is known as _mens rea_. And this _mens rea_ has various degrees which form the modes of culpability –"

"Okay, hold it," Ethan raised his hands before himself, stemming the tide of esoteric knowledge. "Like I said already, the stuff I said at the Drama Club was complete nonsense designed for Lascelles to rip into, though not as well as you're doing now. I don't really believe that stuff myself, so there's no need to convince me of anything,"

"Yes, well, I knew that," Rose said, turning awkward and tapping the cover of her book. "It's just that, no one really challenged what you said, so I had to read up on it, and I got carried away…" She stared down at her book gloomily.

Ethan sighed. "Okay, go ahead and enlighten me. But go slowly – I'm a hacker, not a philosopher of law,"

And so Rose enlightened him, in most scholarly fashion, how he was wrong in his assumption of strict liability for the alleged mistakes committed by various parties in the case of _Weasley v Lascelles._ Ethan had no objections whatsoever to her argument, nor to any established systems' stipulations on the nature of culpability. When Ethan asked an innocent question as to what basis people invented their systems of law, Rose enthusiastically gave him a crash course on normative ethics. He actually found Rose's lecture quite fascinating – between his hacking escapades and evading his enemies, he never found the time to read any philosophy.

"Yes, I think I'm definitely a consequentialist," said Ethan.

"I think I am too, but I think deontological imperatives play an important role in preserving social order. All modern legal systems draw influence from both consequentialist and deontological theories,"

"Hmm…I see. But if that's the case, what happens when influence from two opposing theories collide?"

They discussed at great length the implications of various moral theories, both of them rather engrossed by this new field of knowledge. Ethan was pleasantly surprised by Rose's striking new energy. He liked this Rose a lot better than the more passive version that was subdued by half the school's unwarranted contempt. Hopefully with everyone's hatred now directed at him, Rose would be free to show more of her livelier side.

"Did you really read all this in two days?" Ethan pointed to Rose's book, which she had opened to consult a couple of times. "Can you actually recall all of it?" There was no way Ethan could have done that; his twenty-first century attention span was just not up to such an ordeal.

"I can recall the main points of most topics, but of course I can't say that I've mastered everything to do with ethics. But I think I have a deeper understanding now, discussing it with you; you brought up a lot of questions the book didn't,"

"Have you considered a career in law? Joining the ranks of the Wizengamot, or maybe following your mother's footsteps into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?"

Rose gave a wan smile. "Hah…well, I have considered it, but I don't think politics is for me,"

"I don't know about that," said Ethan. "I'm sure you could be great at anything if you wanted to,"

Rose stared down and drew her fingers idly over the pages of her book. "Hmm…that's very encouraging, but…I guess I want to do something different…not be compared to her,"

"What are you aiming for then?"

"Ah, well…" Rose looked wistfully out over the lake and the mountains beyond it. "I used to have an idea of where I wanted to go…but I don't think it's possible anymore,"

"And where is that?" Ethan asked.

Rose looked up at the sky, swaying on the edge of answering; then came a knocking sound behind them like someone knocking on glass.

Headmistress McGonagall cleared her throat. "Ahem. Good afternoon, Miss Weasley, Mr Chen,"

Rose and Ethan launched off the grass and faced her. Rose dispelled the Imperturbable Barrier and stood politely with her hands clasped together.

"Good afternoon, Professor McGonagall," Rose bowed to her. "We were just chatting," she added hastily.

"Of course you were," McGonagall cordially replied. "It is a wonderful afternoon to be outside,"

"Are you here to enjoy the scenery as well, Professor?" asked Ethan nonchalantly.

"Not at the moment. I came to speak with you, Mr. Chen," McGonagall paused briefly in a side glance at Rose. "I have spoken to the Board of Governors, but unfortunately I was unable to repeal your forthcoming expulsion,"

Ethan expected as much. "I see. He said he's doing it solely to get to you,"

"Yes. I'm afraid this is a consequence of many years of discontent with Hogwarts' policies from certain political groups. I'm sorry that you had to be implicated,"

"So he doesn't know…any more than everyone else?" Ethan had to be vague in his question due to Rose's presence.

"No; he is not yet aware of your – unique circumstances," said McGonagall. Rose's expression furrowed.

"I see. Who is this guy, though?"

"Mr. Crawford is a member of the Wizards' Sovereign Front, a recently established political party, but part of a caucus of minor parties that support _Magus Praesidium_ :the ideology of wizard pre-eminence in magickind society,"

Ethan had read about the WSF in the Daily Prophet; an investigative report had found that several members had previous associations with members of the Knights of Walpurgis. Their support of the Knights' 'freedom fighting' has led to speculation that they were actually the political arm of the Knights.

"Before Mr. Crawford's appointment at Hogwarts, he was a lecturer of Muggle History at the Tower, a rather controversial one who eventually resigned after being denied tenure by the tenure committee. He was elected by the Chairman of the Board of Governors to replace our previous Muggle Studies professor, which the Board dismissed on grounds of inadequate performance. Both the Chairman and Mr. Crawford are highly opposed to the views of the Order of the Phoenix, and I'm afraid they will go to any means to undermine our goals,"

Ethan had gained a marginally better understanding of Crawford, but still couldn't find an angle good enough to solve his predicament.

"Wait, um, Professor McGonagall," asked Rose, looking a little befuddled. "Does this mean that…you're really considering Ethan for the Order?"

"We are considering it," said McGonagall. "Though your mother remains the leader of the Order and carries the ultimate authority of accepting him. I must say though that if this narrative of events is to be believed…" McGonagall produced the roll of parchment that Ethan had handed to the Bloody Baron. "…Mr. Chen could be quite a unique and valuable asset to our cause,"

McGonagall unrolled the parchment and scanned down one of its lines. "This is quite a storied history you have, and I've known men and women with storied histories,"

"Uh huh," said Ethan curtly. "So what now?"

McGonagall rerolled the parchment and returned it to a robe pocket. She then pondered a moment before addressing Rose, who had been listening in utter befuddlement. "I'm sorry, Miss Weasley, but I will have to speak privately with Mr. Chen from here on,"

Rose stared ahead with a look of surprise. "Oh," She stole a sideward glance at Ethan, as if he might say something; when he didn't, her face fell.

"Goodbye, Professor," She bowed to McGonagall, collected her book off the ground, and quietly took her leave up the slope to the castle.

Once Rose was a fair distance away, another Imperturbable Barrier materialized, presumably cast by McGonagall; she thoughtcast it around Ethan and herself without drawing her wand.

"There is one option. One that keep you at Hogwarts. But it will require much from you,"

"Oh? And what is this option?" said Ethan, cautiously intrigued.

"I must warn you though," said McGonagall gravely. "This plan carries no small risk. I cannot guarantee your safety,"

Ethan snorted. "I knew that from my first day here. Don't worry, I'll do it. I'm a dead man if I'm kicked out of this school, right?"

McGonagall breathed solemnly. "I have spoken to Mr. Potter; he is attempting find a new shelter for you, but he warns that he will unlikely be able to protect you from Mr. Lowther for long. Mr. Lowther is tracking your presence with the Ministry's Oculus Array; hiding amongst communities of Squibs is no longer an option. Mr. Lowther seeks to kill you quietly, without raising media or police attention towards your time as a dominated captive in the Ministry. The story of you being a Ministry informant will not stand to official scrutiny. It would be a scandal that will jeopardize his affiliated party and his own position. The only way to keep you safe is for you to remain at Hogwarts,"

Ethan looked up at the monumental ancient castle, sprawling over its lakeside cliff. His first feeling towards the place was repulsion; a powerful desire to leave this godforsaken pool of juvenility and return to some civilization. Yet when he thought about it, no site of civilization he knew was much better; it was just easier to get lost in the crowd. And despite its many faults, Hogwarts had also been a font of many new experiences for him, some of them not entirely awful…

"Tell me this option,"

McGonagall told him. And it blew Ethan away.

"You can't be serious, right?" Ethan was smirking at the pure absurdity of it.

"Will you accept, Mr. Chen?" said McGonagall, with a glint with her wrinkled, astute eyes.

Ethan crossed his arms and in his head, played out the craziness that it would ensue.

"Why not? I'll do it just for the look on everyone's face," Ethan smiled evilly.

* * *

The next morning, Ethan went down for breakfast at around 8:30 a.m., when he knew the Great Hall would be most packed. The enchanted ceiling above projected a picturesque blue sky, the perfect cooling accompaniment to the warm smells and colours of the breakfast-laden tables. Students laughed and gestured in carefree chatter; to them, mornings like these must make the idyllic magical school experience. Ethan wouldn't know anything about such bliss, though.

Ethan sat down at the Squib table, ignoring the wary and repulsed looks thrown at him. Several students' idyllic breakfasts were already ruined by his presence. He could only hope they would find it in their hearts to forgive him, for he was going to disrupt their paradise a little more today.

Ethan reached for a plate of pancakes, but just before he could take hold of it, it shifted away from him and floated several feet into the air. Ethan sat watching it, not attempting to make a grab for it. If he managed to seize it, its contents should a good chance of exploding or bursting into flames.

The plate of pancakes abruptly flung itself towards Ethan. But he was prepared – he smacked the plate away with his hand. His palm was a little dirtied with bits of pancake, but the plate hurtled back, bounced off the shoulder of a nearby Squib girl, scattered pancake over her and her friends and knocked over their breakfast.

The Squibs who were collaterally attacked threw him singing, hateful looks. Ethan took a moment to soak in the circle of attention he had now gathered, and waited for everyone interested to turn their gaze towards him.

"Oh well. It seems that I have to eat somewhere else," Ethan spoke in the mechanical tone of very bad acting. He then got up, made his way around the Squib table, and strode down the centre aisle between the tables of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

For a whole week now students have been levitating, exploding, or otherwise jinxing Ethan's food at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Efforts to pinpoint the culprits were difficult, because there were too many of them, temporarily switching wands with one another so there would be no evidence against them by the time a professor came along. It was a schoolwide collaboration, a commendable showing of inter-year, inter-house unity. Ethan had thought of a few ways he could flush out some of the usual culprits, but at this time, it would only amount to a fruitless confrontation. The matter will be dealt with eventually; for now, he had bigger fish to fry.

The High Table was two-thirds occupied; Headmistress McGonagall and a few other staff weren't around as they tended to finish breakfast early and not idle about. Crawford was on the left end, with only Scrooby beside him, and much more staff on the right side of the table. Like a wave, heads turned to track Ethan as he stepped up to the High Table and stopped right across from Crawford.

"Morning, Professor Crawford," Ethan greeted.

Crawford glowered at him. "What do you want?" Crawford had just recently started on a plate of full English breakfast.

"Oh nothing, just here for a friendly chat," Ethan peered at the selection of food at the table with an air of blithe curiosity. "Are you eating this? Don't think so,"

Ethan picked up a fork and speared into a bowl of salad in front of them. Ethan ate a juicy wedge of tomato and chewed it deliberately.

"What do you think you're doing?" Crawford growled. "Students aren't allowed to eat here,"

"Actually, I don't recall that being specifically in the rules," Professor Thomas, who was passing by, stopped behind Crawford.

"Then as of today, I will make it an official rule," Crawford said, simmering at Thomas's interference.

"Right then, just be sure to post one of those Educational Decrees first," Thomas replied casually. "Until then, I'd say there's nothing with some student-teacher interaction at breakfast, eh?"

"That sounds like a great idea, Professor Thomas," said Ethan. He hadn't expected any assistance, but much appreciated it. He skewered another forkful of salad and crunched on it with his mouth open. "You know Professor Crawford, I would have done this sooner, but I was afraid you'd disapprove,"

Crawford's neck was reddening like a roasting pig. Facing away from the House tables, Ethan couldn't tell how many students were watching, but he hoped for as many as possible.

"Oh, I almost forgot," piped up Thomas. "Scrooby, I need your help later,"

Scrooby had been giving Ethan a disdainful look as well, but with only about half the energy of Crawford. Scrooby craned his neck towards Thomas, but had not the vitality or motivation to actually face him. "Eh? For what?"

"Got to relocate the Room. A group of fourth-years discovered it yesterday, almost seriously hurt themselves with their own wishes. I trust you received the memo on that, Inquisitor?"

Crawford's expression crinkled. "Relocate the room?"

"Yes – that is standard procedure. The room is too powerful to allow students to use. Luckily the fourth-years don't suspect much; I told them it was just your average storeroom that rains alcohol. We'll let the whole staff know of the Room's new location on the staffroom noticeboard,"

"What is this room you're talking about?" Ethan asked.

"Ah, it's nothing. Staff business," Thomas replied breezily.

"I see. I get the sense that there are a lot of mysteries about this school," said Ethan. A room that was 'too powerful to allow students to use' – that definitely aroused his interest. "Professor Crawford, can I ask a question?"

"Get away from this table, right now,"

"Where does all this food come from? Do wizards have their own farming industry?"

"Did you not hear me?"

"We do, for magical foods," answered Thomas. "But they're mostly small operations with little land, which they compensate with higher prices. That's why we don't serve magical dishes here,"

"So you buy your produce from Muggles?" Ethan picked up the salad bowl and dug into it.

"Yes; we pretend to be Muggle clients – though, since they've learnt of our existence, that's become a lot harder. If you've noticed, the kitchens aren't making any rice dishes or other things that require imported ingredients – our suppliers for those have cold iron detectors now, and of course they won't sell to wizards,"

"Hmm, interesting," Ethan put down his half-eaten salad bowl. "Sounds like the sort of thing we should be learning about in Muggle Studies, don't you think, Professor Crawford?"

"Leave. Now. I won't say it again,"

"Professor Crawford, it might just be me, but I think the food at the staff table tastes better. Or maybe it's just the salad," Ethan pierced the slice of fried bread on Crawford's plate and took a bite of it. "Nope, it really does taste better,"

Crawford swelled with outrage. "Detention Chamber, boy. Tonight!"

Ethan stuffed the bread in his mouth; he stared steadily at Crawford as he chewed, and swallowed his food before speaking.

"That's completely fine with me. It's not like I have any plans at night,"

"You will have detention today, tomorrow, and the next day – until you are out of this school!" Crawford roared, slamming his fists on the table.

"Is that all?" Ethan reached forward and took a thick slice of his black pudding, all while maintaining eye contact. As he bit into it, Crawford flew off his chair, drew his wand and pointed to his chest.

"You _insolent_ little –"

Thomas clapped a hand on Crawford's shoulder.

"Inquisitor, you're not turning your wand on an unarmed student, are you?" He warned helpfully. "That's grounds for immediate suspension without pay. I don't know how things are run in the Tower, but our Headmistress takes violence against students very seriously,"

Ethan swallowed his black pudding, then scooped a spoonful of Crawford's baked beans.

"Professor Crawford, have I ever done anything to offend you? Besides what I'm doing now, of course," Ethan said as he cleaned Crawford's plate of beans.

Apparently the blood in his neck must be blocking his throat, because Crawford remained furiously speechless.

"Because I don't remember doing anything to you severe enough to warrant my sudden expulsion," Ethan idly twirled his spoon between his fingers before tossing it unceremoniously on Crawford's plate. "If you're doing this for the reason I think you are, which is simply to annoy McGonagall and the Order of the Phoenix…then I have to tell you that it is not going to be worth it. Because now you've picked a fight with _me._ And that is a mistake you're going to regret for the rest of your life,"

Crawford's face was glowing; his wand pointed at Ethan's chest shook in barely-contained rage. "Are you _threatening_ me?"

Ethan gave a thin smirk. "Threatening? No, that would imply that I'm holding back. I'm declaring war on you. But unlike the war going on outside, this one is going to end much faster. Before this week is done, I will destroy you,"

Ethan picked up Crawford's untouched glass of pumpkin juice and drained it in one swing. Settling the glass on the table, he gave Crawford one last portentous look before striding out of the Great Hall, filled with the most satisfying meal he'd had since the Start-of-Term Feast.

* * *

Ethan's morning classes in Potions and Astronomy went by uneventfully. In both classes, Ethan tuned out the stares and whispers about him and meditated on the next showdown to come: Muggle Studies class, the last class of the day. He mentally practiced his lines, played out scenarios in his head, and prepared answers to possible contingencies. He had a mission to carry out, and he would do so with the same dedication he used to, back when he was tackling corrupt businesses, terrorists and cartels with his crew.

Ethan sat in his dorm bed and read through his Muggle Studies textbook during lunchtime, waiting as usual for most of the students to clear from the Hall so he could eat without his food floating away or combusting.

At about ten minutes left to the end of lunch, the door opened and Timothy and Varun entered the dorm room. With an uncomfortable glance at Ethan, they went to their respective trunks to retrieve their D.A.D.A and Muggle Studies textbooks for the afternoon's classes. They reconvened at the front of the door, but as Timothy reached for the doorknob, he paused and turned around.

"Ethan," Timothy began tentatively. "Err, I think O'Neill is lurking outside the common room. Waiting for you,"

Ethan put down his textbook.

"How do you know?" Ethan asked.

"I thought I saw a Disillusioned outline of him shifting around the corner of the hallway," said Timothy.

Freshly returned from his at-home suspension, O'Neill must have witnessed Ethan at breakfast and thought he needed a new lesson.

"I see. Thank you for the warning,"

It was first time his dorm mates were speaking to him since learning he was a Muggle; to think that all it took for them to do so was another beating from O'Neill. Ethan checked his watch – or Albus's – there should be enough time for him to get treated at the hospital wing and squeeze in some food before class. He packed his textbooks into his schoolbag and made for the door.

"Wait, you're going out there?" Timothy cried in disbelief as Ethan passed between him and Varun. "He's going to attack you!"

"Definitely," Ethan took out a Healing Potion from his schoolbag, wrapped in one of his socks. He drank it pre-emptively to heal against the damage he would soon receive. He was actually hoping for a straightforward beating – he would take that over being transfigured again.

"Are you an idiot?" said Varun irritably. "You should just stay here and wait him out,"

"If I were to cower in here," Ethan turned around to face them. "There's a chance O'Neill will force some Squib to take him inside the Squib Quarters, or sneak in after someone. Then he'll be able to come up here and destroy all my stuff," Which was mostly Albus's stuff, and ironically harder to repair than his body. "I'd rather not help him discover that idea,"

Varun had no retort, possibly due to realizing his belongings would be endangered as well.

"S-So you're just going to face him?" said Timothy, aghast.

"Yes – I'll just call him a few names and send him back to suspension,"

O'Neill was a psychopath; psychopaths tended to have poor impulse control in spite of their superficial cunning. If Ethan did anything to stoke his predatory instincts, like run, he might get carried away and kill him. It may be Ethan's best option to surrender to a beating and hope that would satisfy O'Neill's wounded pride. But Ethan had too much pride of his own to ever prostrate himself to such an artless brute. If his plan with McGonagall succeeded, everything would be resolved – he just needed to survive a little longer.

"That's so stupid," said Varun. "You like getting your arse kicked? How long do you think you can keep this up?"

"He's right," concurred Timothy. "I mean, being a Muggle at Hogwarts is hard enough, but you just make it so much worse by being so – so aggressive,"

Ethan suspected they had been meaning to say this to him for a while. Ethan supposed he had some words of his own for them.

"And what you would have me do instead? When people mess with me, I mess back. I won't roll over like the Squibs in this school,"

"See, that's what I'm talking about," moaned Timothy.

Varun glared at Ethan darkly. "You don't know what it's like being a Squib,"

"No, but I can imagine. Living your whole life surrounded by wizards and magic you can't use – you feel like a born cripple. But in the end it's only a feeling. You're only inferior to wizards because you think you are,"

Varun was incensed. "Don't act like you know what we think. It's not as simple as that!"

"Isn't it?" said Ethan coldly. "Tell me why then the two of you are terrified of looking Hugo in the eye, why you don't even dare start a conversation with Scorpius or the Scamanders. Hugo let you two join the Club out of pity; if you can't be more than just dead weight, you should really just quit and not ruin the atmosphere,"

Varun ground his teeth. "…You have to watch what you say, even around friendly wizards. Have you forgotten that they can use magic and we can't?"

"You don't need magic to assert yourself," said Ethan. "Like I said, if anyone tries to mess with you, you mess with them back in any way you know how – let them and everyone else know that it's not worth it,"

"Yeah, and how's that working out for you?"

Ethan supposed it was fair for Varun to be sceptical from his perspective. "I'm working on it,"

"You're just one Muggle," breathed Varun, shaking his head. "You don't stand a chance against Crawford and O'Neill and everyone else who hates you,"

Ethan hadn't planned to deal with this outburst; he was starting to get annoyed.

"…I'm not exactly alone," Ethan said admittedly. His own words grated him. He could already see Varun's retort coming.

"What? Who's helping you?"

"The Order,"

Varun recovered fast from this surprise. "So in the end you're still relying on wizards! So what's the difference between us?"

Seeing someone else's anger always reminded Ethan to temper his own emotions. His annoyance subsided.

"The difference is that I don't wallow in anger and self-pity," Ethan said steadily. "I face wizards as an equal, not as if I were an inferior species,"

"…Aren't we though?"

Ethan and Varun both turned to Timothy. Timothy looked away, staring despondently at the old stove in the middle of the room.

"I mean…when you look at the facts, you can't deny it. Wizards _are_ superior. I mean, what do we have that they don't?"

Timothy's words hung in the air for a while.

"It's not what you have, but what you use," said Ethan.

Varun scoffed. "Easy for you to say – you're a genius,"

Ethan snorted. " _I'm_ a genius? If that's so, then the standards of genius around here must be pretty low,"

There were people in this world who become chess grandmasters at thirteen, people who can mentally solve math problems faster than someone with a calculator, and people who could literally draw any subject from memory after seeing it just once. Ethan didn't think his brain was any superior to that of most people; he had simply learnt from young to use it on things that mattered.

Ethan turned his cool gaze back to Varun. "Even if I was a genius, what does that have to do with you?" It was time to wrap up this talk.

"I think you severely overestimate wizards," Ethan spoke calmly. "Magic or not, they're still human. And that means deep down, they're just as weak and afraid as we are. I will show you. I will show you what a mere Muggle is capable of in this school. And it won't take a genius to do it – what I do is not impossible for anyone. All it takes is a little cunning, intellect, and audacity,"

Ethan left the dormitory area and crossed the common room. The entrance of the Squib Quarters was a simple door that could only be opened by those with no magical ability. As Ethan opened the door, the first thing he saw in the middle of the hallway was not O'Neill, but Lily's red hair, her back turned to him and wand drawn, in a duel-ready stance.

Facing her at the other end of the hallway was O'Neill, wand also drawn, and beside Lily was Iris, with one hand reached inside her sleeve and looking very discomfited to be present.

Lily and Iris turned their heads at the sound of Ethan opening the door. As they did, O'Neill seized the distraction and fired a rain of spells, all arcing towards Ethan. Lily turned back and deflected all of them, expertly twirling her wand. The ricocheted spells burst upon the walls and ceiling like fireworks; Iris drew back slightly.

"Hah! So that's the best you got?" Lily taunted confidently.

"Get lost, Potter, or you'll have detention every day until you graduate," O'Neill snarled.

"Go on then. Then I'll have no reason not to turn you into a toad. I warn you though: I'm very bad at Transfig,"

Ethan closed the door behind him and approached between Lily and Iris. "What's going on?" He asked, quite genuinely surprised.

O'Neill stabbed Ethan with a look of purest loathing, his face twisted into something near monstrous.

"You just never learn. I come back to school and all I hear is all kinds of stupid shit about you," He threw an ugly glare at Iris.

"Piss off, O'Neill," said Lily. "You're not hurting Ethan while I'm here,"

Iris averted her face from O'Neill – not out of embarrassment, but fear. Ethan stepped in front of Lily and Iris. With their backup, it should be easy to chase O'Neill off without any duelling.

"So, you're back," Ethan said cheerfully. "What sort of things did you hear about me? Only nice, flattering things, I hope,"

"Not at all," snarled O'Neill. "You just don't know your fucking place. I came here to show you,"

Ethan smiled smugly. "Just can't keep yourself away from me, eh? Did you really miss me that much?"

O'Neill was convulsing with the effort of containing his urge to violence. If he did dare to fully engage in a duel, Ethan had full confidence that Lily would swiftly humiliate him.

After a long standoff as he wrestled with that fact, O'Neill finally lowered his wand. "Tch. Always hiding behind others. You can't hide behind them forever – one day you'll be alone, and that's when I'll get you," O'Neill turned tail and stormed out of sight.

Lily slipped her own wand back within her sleeve. "Good riddance. Though I would have enjoyed practicing my human Transfig on him,"

Ethan turned around to face the two girls. Thankfully no one else was around to have witnessed that standoff, nor to see him conversing with them.

"Lily – what are you doing here?"

"O'Neill was about to barge into your room and attack you. Of course I couldn't just let that happen,"

"I don't mean that. Were you just passing by or something?"

Lily displayed several tell-tale signs of someone lying. "Err, yeah. Yeah, I was just passing by, and spotted O'Neill headed to the Squib Quarters," Her eyes darted away momentarily and her hand rested over her school satchel.

The hallway outside the Squib Quarters was out of the way from the Grand Staircase and not connected to any classrooms they used. The most likely place for Lily to have spotted O'Neill was somewhere between the Great Hall and the Staircase, but from there it couldn't be clear where he was headed. Ethan hoped that she had come outside the Squib Quarters for some other purpose, and just happened to encounter O'Neill. The thought that she might have purposely come to protect him…did not sit well with him.

"You need to stop doing this," said Ethan.

Lily blinked confusedly. "Doing what?"

"Protecting me. I can fend for myself," Ethan did not want Lily or anyone else taking punishment for his sake, and least of all to become a primary target of O'Neill.

"You? Fend for yourself?" Iris spoke up, scoffing. "How exactly were you going to do that if we weren't here?"

"Why _are_ you here?" Ethan said curiously to Iris.

Iris shifted awkwardly and crossed her arms. "I was…explaining to Lily about – about that ridiculous stunt you pulled on Sunday,"

Lily nodded. "So, uh…what you did at the Drama Club…that was to help Rose and Iris, right?" She peered at Ethan in a strange look.

" _Help?_ " Iris huffed indignantly. "He manipulated us – toyed with our feelings like it was nothing to him,"

"Perhaps we should talk about this somewhere else," said Ethan. "It won't be good for either of you to be seen chatting with –"

Suddenly, the Squib entrance opened and a group of students poured out the door on their way to class.

"Quick, get out of here," Ethan whispered.

"What?" Lily and Iris flicked their heads back and front again confusedly.

Ethan straightened his back to a more patronizing posture.

"So you came here to tell me to leave you alone?" Ethan spoke loud enough for the Squibs to hear as they neared. "I'm afraid I can't do that,"

"Huh?"

"What?"

"Lily, I understand you coming to support Iris, but this is a personal matter, and none of your concern. And I already told you Iris, that I will not give up on you even if you object. If this is a problem, then I'm afraid to say that this is really your own fault for being so beautiful,"

The passing Squibs hung their jaws agape while Lily and Iris stood stunned. Ethan shot a raised brow at Iris, hoping to convey the message that they needed to react. Iris promptly snapped back to her senses.

"Ugh, there's no talking to this Muggle," Iris vented fitfully. "Let's go, Lily," She threw a seething glare at Ethan. "And don't you dare come near us again!"

She took Lily by the hand and led her around the corner of the hallway. The witnessing Squibs carried on their way after them, passing Ethan with a wide berth and looks of shock and disgust.

It was possible that Lily and Iris genuinely left, but Ethan took a hunch and went around the corner after a few seconds of wait. As he went down another hallway towards the Grand Staircase, he heard someone behind him.

"Over here,"

Ethan turned around; hanging from one of the walls was a fancy medieval tapestry of dragons and princesses, and it was apparently hiding some space behind it – Iris was peeking out from behind the tapestry and rather begrudgingly beckoning him to follow.

Checking that no one else was watching him, Ethan followed Iris behind the tapestry, into an unadorned stone passageway, only dimly lit by widely spaced sconces.

"What is this?" asked Ethan.

"A hidden passage," chirped Lily, waiting for them under a sconce a sizable distance away from the tapestry. "Hogwarts is full of them. So you know about this one, too, Iris?"

"Yes. Sir Nicholas told me about this one. Very few students should know it, so we can talk here,"

Iris stepped away from him to stand beside Lily. Their red and blonde hair glowed brightly under the singular firelight of the sconce. The narrow, windowless passage threw their meeting in a rather dingy, claustrophobic light.

"I didn't know you two knew each other,"

Lily tilted her head about sheepishly. "Um, well, we know each other…Rose and Iris used to be friends. Until, well…"

"Lily, I'm really sorry about everything," Iris turned to her, pleading.

"It's okay, you've apologized enough," Lily said soothingly. "As along as Rose is fine with it, I am,"

"Thank you, Lily," A short silence passed in which Ethan allowed them to soak in their good feeling.

"So err, that just now, that was just an act, right?" Lily said to Ethan. "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes. I take it you've heard about what happened at the Drama Club?"

"I heard a million things from all over the school, but Rose and Iris told me what happened,"

"So you know that I'm currently madly in love with Lascelles,"

"No you're not," snapped Iris. "You said that you don't believe in love,"

"Oh, you remember that? In any case, I have to keep up appearances, at least for a while," said Ethan. Iris cringed.

"By the way, nice improv back there. As expected of a star drama student. Next time, maybe press your advantage – make fun of me, tell me what a loser I am. Should earn you plenty of points with your friends,"

"There won't be a next time," Iris said curtly. "You'll be out of here come Saturday,"

"Yes, well, just in case we cross again,"

"Where will you go after Saturday?" asked Lily.

"Back with my uncle, I suppose," said Ethan. "Nothing else to it than that. I believe we came here to talk about something?"

"Ah, right," Lily's expression furrowed in pondering. "So…why did you do all that stuff at the Drama Club?"

Ethan supposed that he wanted this meeting with Iris as well. There were still things he had to say, but in an honest manner.

"Scorpius told me to make amends for what I did to Iris last Tuesday," Ethan faced Iris. "He was worried about your depressed mood after what happened,"

"Scorpius…was worried about me?" Iris muttered.

"Yes. He was very adamant about it, wouldn't take no for an answer. Must be nice, having friends," Ethan said, his voice dropping soberly. "That's at least one proof that I was wrong about you,"

Iris fidgeted lightly but made no response.

"Back then, I said some terrible things. I humiliated you, so I've humiliated myself in return. Now your reputation is recovered, at least as well as it can be,"

There was a bit of an uncomfortable itch in his chest; it wasn't easy speaking without his veneer of obnoxious confidence.

"Scorpius didn't come up with that…charade," said Iris heatedly. "That was your plan. You attacked him and Rose with some bullshit logic, and goaded me to react. You made me apologize to Rose,"

"I didn't make you do either of those things. I was only confident that you would,"

Iris hesitated for a moment, but maintained her indignation. "Even so, I'll never forgive the way you played us all,"

"I don't expect you to," said Ethan solemnly. "I don't need or deserve forgiveness,"

"So…did it work?" Lily asked Iris. "Everyone I talk to thinks what you did was very brave,"

"What I did wasn't brave," said Iris softly. "A lot of people are embellishing – saying that I 'trounced' him, when I barely said anything coherent,"

"I disagree," said Ethan. "It definitely took courage to do what you did. And you cut down my bullshit perfectly,"

"Hmph," Iris turned her sight to a stone wall, where their shadows hung starkly against the orange-lit stone. "On the surface, I suppose things are better. But I know some are still backbiting me. Did you think your stunt would be enough to reverse what you did?"

Ethan shook his head.

"No wrong in this world can ever be 'reversed'. Some people will still whisper about you, because what you did was real – you made Rose's life miserable because you were jealous of her. But you've apologized to her now, and defended her from the evil Muggle. That will help most people like you again, but not all. Regardless, it would be best for you to stop paying attention to them and continue with your own life. Don't act repentant. Never show weakness. Put on that lovely charm of yours, and remind everyone why you're the princess of this school,"

Iris stood silent for a long while, deep in musing. "I don't need your advice," she eventually said, decidedly not looking at him.

Ethan smiled wanly. "You know…most of what I said at the Drama Club was an act, but I really am sorry for what I said to you, at the Great Hall, a week ago. I was…angry at the time. I thought I was headed for a jail cell. I didn't mean what I said,"

"…You sounded like you meant it," Iris said quietly, hugging her own arms.

"No. I called you various things…"

"Petty, jealous, vindictive, underhanded, two-faced and attention-seeking," said Iris.

"Yes, but then I really don't know you. Those words weren't meant for you, but for someone else. Someone else I knew. At that time, you reminded me of her,"

"…I see…you mean that girl…" murmured Iris.

Iris's house-elf had given her printed news articles about Ethan's past. Every other student only knew what McGonagall had announced. Even the written 'reflection' he gave McGonagall focused more on his criminal exploits than his life before. That meant Iris was possibly the only person at Hogwarts who knew the finer details of his past, particularly the first crime he committed that made him a pariah.

"I'm sorry," Ethan said again and bowed to her. He remained bowed for several seconds, staring the grey floor, until he heard an exasperated huff.

"Fine. I accept your apology. For what happened at the Great Hall,"

Ethan straightened up. Iris was crossing her arms, forcing herself to face him with a look of great irritation.

"But I still can't forgive you for what you did at the Drama Club. I still have to live with your stupid act. You better put an end to it soon,"

"Actually, I can stop any time," Ethan replied plainly. "I'm doing this for you,"

Iris winced. "I think you're a despicable person,"

"I think so, too,"

Iris paused, coiled with rising discomfort, but found nothing else to say. "Hmph. Goodbye," Iris turned around and strode off down the passageway.

Long after Iris had gone, Lily remained, stunned by everything she had taken in.

"You're a really strange person, Ethan. Stranger than any Muggle I've ever known," she remarked.

"Oh? You know a lot of Muggles?" Ethan asked conversationally.

"My, err, Dad's cousin is a Muggle. I used to play at his house with his kids when I was little. I never even knew my cousins were Muggles until much later. There was really no difference between us. You though – you're something else,"

Ethan cracked a small smile at imagining that idyllic setting. Somehow, hearing that simple aspect of Lily's past put him at ease. "I think this school is full of strange people. You included,"

"Me?" Lily pointed at herself, befuddled. "What's strange about me?"

Ethan declined to reply. Perhaps there was something about magic or wizard society that was conducive to eccentricity. Ethan checked his watch.

"We're very late for class now. We should get going," Ethan hadn't had any lunch and the Great Hall's food was already cleared by now, but he wasn't concerned – his heavy breakfast should be able to see him through the afternoon.

"Huh? Oh yeah," Lily stared at his watch for a second before replying. "I got Charms right now. You?"

Ethan couldn't see how this was a question worth asking. "D.A.D.A,"

"Ah. Well, see you at M.S. – wait, are you going to show up for that?" Lily asked worriedly. "Crawford might kill you after what you did to him at breakfast,"

Ethan grinned evilly. "Oh I'm showing up alright," The only person who should be afraid of attending class right now was Crawford. An idea then occurred to him. "Actually, I'd like your help with something,"

* * *

Through the door of Ethan's Muggle Studies classroom, he could hear Crawford continuing his coverage of World War II. Ethan took a few calming breaths and once again mentally reviewed the speeches he was about to make. Once he felt himself ready, he waited for an opportune moment to make his entrance.

"– the weapons of Muggles are crude and indiscriminate, as likely to hurt their own side as their enemies. As we've already seen, their most dangerous weapon –"

Ethan threw open the doors of the classroom and strode to his usual seat in the back. The tension was immediate.

"You're late," said Crawford tautly.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Ethan waved his hand airily. "I had some D.A.D.A questions I wanted to ask Professor Thomas. About magic resistance, which we won't cover until December, but since I won't be in school by then, I wanted to ask while –"

"Be quiet," spat Crawford.

Ethan chuckled. "Go on then, professor. Don't let me keep you from your lesson,"

Crawford eyed him suspiciously, before turning back to his blackboard, on which was projected an old image of a World War II tank. Ethan allowed him to talk for a while, to give him a semblance of control before he took it away.

"…and therefore ultimately, guns are less effective than wands in combat. One of their larger weapons, tanks, saw further development during the war, becoming a central part of Muggle warfare. Of course, by their fundamental design, they are completely useless against wizards –"

"I wouldn't say they're _completely_ useless," Ethan remarked loudly.

Crawford glared at him, as did every pair of eyes in the classroom. Lily glanced once at Ethan before focusing her attention on Crawford.

"Don't interrupt me, boy,"

"I'm just correcting you, professor," said Ethan nonchalantly. "Sure, tanks are easy targets for transfiguration, so they can't be used against wizards the same way as Muggles, but they're still decent as mobile artillery. They can rip through barriers and whatever magical creatures you unleash. Also, arms companies have started production on tanks with goblin-crafted magic-resistant armour,"

The tense air churned from the boiling resentment of Crawford and several students.

"You will be quiet at once, boy," said Crawford thickly. "Or you will be severely punished,"

"With what? More detention? You already gave me detention for the rest of my school life here,"

"You will polish every item in the Trophy Room and clean every toilet in the castle every day until you're gone from here!" Crawford bellowed.

"Fine. No problem," Ethan shrugged. "But who's going to supervise me?"

"The Caretaker is in charge of supervising cleaning punishments," Crawford growled.

"You mean Kleaner, the house-elf you said you were going to return to the kitchens as the first thing you do once you become Headmaster?" Ethan reclined in his chair. "Chances are I won't be doing any cleaning at all,"

"Then I'll get someone else to watch you,"

 _This guy is too easy,_ thought Ethan. He just blurted out the first thing to come to his mind, without any thought to how handily he was being led to slaughter.

"Someone else? What staff in this school can you trust to help you? You are far and away the least popular professor in this school – even your colleagues hate your guts. Unless you replace the entire faculty when you take over, you're going to have a hell of a time running this school,"

"If I have to replace the entire faculty, I will," snarled Crawford. "The Order of the Phoenix has no place using this school as a platform for their traitorous agenda,"

The information McGonagall gave on Crawford was little, but it was all Ethan needed to figure out the gist of him. Ethan's present goal was to make Crawford despise him, and the best way Ethan ever found to earn someone's hatred was to tell them exactly who they were.

"Professor, I understand why you're so pissed all the time. You're out here on a mission from Chairman O'Neill and the Wizards Sovereign Front: to turn this school away from its wayward path. One conservative lone ranger surrounded by liberal-minded scum for colleagues. If you weren't so thoroughly in the wrong, I would commiserate with you. You're wondering – when is this going to be worth it? What do you think?"

Crawford sneered. "It's about to become worth it. Soon, I'll be Headmaster of Hogwarts – I'll kick out everyone siding with the Order, and get this school back on the right track,"

For someone who used to lecture at 'the Tower' – the wizarding world's most renowned institute of higher magical learning, Crawford was almost unbelievably simple-minded. Almost.

Ethan stood up. It was time to turn up the oven fire.

"'Back on the right track'? How righteous," Ethan's voice dripped with mockery. "Please don't tell me that's how you actually see yourself, because no one else is buying it. How did your last noble cause go? You resigned from the Tower after being denied tenure. How petty. Ran away after facing a little opposition. Crawford, you are _not_ some righteous saviour of the education system. You're just a cruel, bigoted imbecile who's not fit to teach anyone. If you think you're going to be successful here, just from a little backing from the Board, you clearly haven't learnt a thing. When you fail this time, it won't simply be a repeat of the past – it will be far worse. And do you know why you will fail?" Ethan paused to watch the purpling of Crawford's face. "Because you were stupid enough to pick a fight with me,"

"Enough. Get out," Crawford pointing a finger at the door, shaking with rage.

"I'm afraid I don't want to. I came here to partake in my last days of formal education, and you're just standing there, wasting all of our valuable lesson time. Go on then, tell us about Muggle weaponry,"

Crawford was dumbstruck. No matter what he said or did, it would only play into Ethan's hands.

"What's the matter? Is class over already? If you ask me, the Tower didn't deny your tenure because of your bullshit ideas, but because you're a terrible teacher,"

Crawford pulled out his wand aimed it to Ethan's chest.

"Out!"

Ethan staggered backward – an invisible force pressed against his chest, like Crawford was physically trying to push him out of the room. For a second he almost toppled over, but suddenly the force disappeared, and Ethan straightened back up.

"What the – _Flipendo!_ " Crawford roared, boosting the spell.

Ethan did not dare turn his eyes to her, or he would give her away – but from the back of the class he could see Lily hunched over her desk, covering one hand under the sleeve of the other. She was counter-spelling Crawford's Knockback Jinx, disassembling its energy structure before it could reach him.

"I told you, professor," Ethan feigned a little strain in his voice, as if he were speaking through the pressure on his chest. "That I went to Professor Thomas for tips on magic resistance. He told me that all it takes is to focus on the spell and will it apart. It's easier than I thought,"

"I-Impossible!" spewed Crawford, jabbing his wand harder at Ethan. "A Muggle can't – can't have enough resistance to break the smallest spell!"

That Ethan knew was true from his own experience. For him, breaking the Imperius Curse took months of constant concentration whereas a decent wizard trained in Occlumency would be able to break it in minutes.

"Guess it's just another thing you're wrong about," said Ethan. "Actually, since you've stopped educating for the day, allow me to correct some of the misinformation you have been feeding us,"

Ethan left his desk and strolled down the side of the classroom, slowly approaching the front.

"You said earlier 'guns are less effective than wands in combat'," Ethan shook his head deliberately. "Wands can do many things that guns can't, but guns are a tool that mankind has refined for centuries, to deliver death at the highest efficiency that science and ingenuity allow. I've seen how long it takes for you wizards to break through each other's Barriers. A modern rifle can punch through that in seconds. You, Crawford, were going to loose this class on the world with the idea that they can soak bullets for days," Ethan stopped behind the teacher's desk and moderately slammed his palms on it. "Your misinformation is not only painful to listen to, it is dangerous,"

"What – what do you think you're doing?" gasped Crawford.

"I've skipped ahead on our textbook, and it astounds me how poorly informed wizards are about the Muggle world, considering that you've known about us a lot longer than we've known you. And it is clearly arrogance in your 'natural superiority' that keeps you from learning. You think nuclear weapons are the reason why the Ministry is reluctant to go all out against the Muggles? If there is a weapon that's actually useless against wizards, it's nuclear weapons,"

"You want to know the real reason? How about the fact that you are outnumbered sixteen thousand to one? Sure, with your mobility and tactical power you can easily seize London or Washington, instantly capture a majority of our political leadership. But you know how well that's turned out for Russia. You just harden the whole population against you, while this is still a war that most Muggles only watch through a screen. The worldwide wizard population is about four hundred and eighty-two thousand – the active personnel of the U.S. Armed Forces is over three times that. I know these numbers because I was in the Ministry – I heard it from Harry Potter himself. It amazes me to hear some of you claiming that you can win this war, or forge a truce on your terms. If only Occlumency could protect wizards from self-delusion,"

"That's enough!"

Crawford flourished his wand and Ethan felt a chill in his throat. He tried to speak, but the air vanished as it left his vocal tract. A few seconds later, however, his voice returned – Lily had started to counter the Silence Charm.

"That's the second time you've assaulted a student now, professor," said Ethan, making his voice slightly strained but at full volume. Crawford stared wide-eyed, disbelieving. Ethan had been prepared to resort to miming and signs on his notepad if Crawford Silenced him, but having Lily's help was much better. Ethan had warned Lily to stop immediately if Crawford began to track her counter-spelling. Fortunately, it seemed Crawford's mana sensitivity was too weak to detect who was helping him – the idea that someone was helping him was likely unconceivable to Crawford.

"You can't Silence me. Your magic is too weak," mocked Ethan. "Which is fortunate for all of us, actually. Because if you did Silence me, then you wouldn't get to hear all this information I have about the war,"

The faces of the classroom flashed from astonishment and anger into curiosity.

"The Daily Prophet tells you daily of how the Ministry is hitting back against the Muggles – it assures you that there is no way the Muggles can ever capture you, since detection magic will see them coming hours away. Let me tell you something that the Ministry and the Prophet haven't told you – soon the U.S. and U.K. military will roll out adamantine-armoured transports – immune to detection magic. The goblins are making mithril shirts as well for Muggle special forces – that will make them undetectable _and_ much harder to take down. You won't know they're coming until the moment they ram through your town's barrier. You'll still be able to escape, but you won't have the time to take your house with you anymore. This war of attrition you're already losing will get much worse for each household,"

His classmates' faces struggled between anger, fear and disbelief. Crawford's Silence had become barely noticeable.

"You can try taking back poorly-defended towns, but every time you do, it will be much harder. Cold iron-based magic detectors will soon be sold to the public, so they will be able to see _you_ coming. And they'll have cold iron ammunition as well – which will only need one to two rounds to break your Barrier,"

Ethan leaned over the teacher's desk and swept over the class with an ominous gaze.

"The Muggles have already learnt all about you, and how to beat you. And trust me when I say that they are not going to leave you in peace out of the kindness of their hearts. Listening to imbeciles who can't face reality will only lead to your downfall. The only way to preserve your wands and freedom is to negotiate a truce on equal terms. And if you want any hope of that, first you have to actually learn something about us. That is the point of this subject, right?"

Ethan gave one last evil grin to Crawford, solidifying the impression that this was all targeted at him. He left the teacher's desk and strode out of the classroom, through a dense air of total silence. He snuck a glance at Lily, who was understandably stunned, before he stepped out.

Ethan let out an exhausted sigh once the classroom doors shut behind him.

 _Hmm, so-so. Now to do that every day until Crawford either leaves or breaks._


	15. Chapter 15 - Desperate Measures

Chapter 15 – Desperate Measures

It seemed to Rose that the more she learnt about Ethan, the less she knew. He was an informant for the Ministry, but clearly there was more beneath the surface than that. Headmistress McGonagall mentioned that Ethan had 'unique circumstances' that neither Crawford nor anyone else was aware of. He was being considered for the Order of the Phoenix…and for some reason it was important that he remain at Hogwarts. McGonagall had Rose leave to speak to Ethan alone. Was it sensitive Order business that they discussed? …Or was it a plan to deal with Crawford and keep Ethan in school? She racked her mind over it in the walk between classes, during classes, and while staring at her homework. Even if it started to eat at her grades, she couldn't stop thinking about it; she had to know. Because it was her mother's organization. Because the Order was their best, perhaps their only chance for peace with Mugglekind. Because –

"That smug-faced douchebag," grumbled Erith, seated across Rose at the Ravenclaw table. "What right does he have to criticize us? He's just a Muggle, and a crook, and a creep. He just gets more and more outrageous every day. I'll be glad to see him expelled,"

Word of Ethan's latest speech had spread across the school as fast as his previous stunts, and provoked more ire than any of them. Yet as harsh as his words were, Rose couldn't disagree with his assessment. Ethan had spoken aloud the sentiments that she never did, the thoughts she had been afraid to give form in her mind. The war…was not going in their favour, and her parents and Lily's parents were at odds at how to end it.

"Students, may I have your attention, please?" McGonagall stood up from her seat at the High Table and spoke with magically-magnified voice. Students paused their breakfast and turned up to her.

"Good morning," McGonagall began cordially. "Some of you may have heard recently that one of our students, Ethan Chen, will be expelled from Hogwarts this Saturday following approval from our Board of Governors. In response, Mr. Chen has volunteered to drop out of Hogwarts of his own accord,"

A wave of murmurs spread across the Great Hall. _Drop out?_ Rose thought, surprised. _I thought he wanted to stay in school._

"Good riddance," commented Erith.

"Mr. Ethan Chen will, effective today, assume a position as our second professor of Muggle Studies,"

The Hall erupted into cacophony, the air roiling with yells of outrage. Rose looked around; Lily was gobsmacked, Hugo stunned, James beside himself. The staff members along the High Table watched the students' reactions with empathising reserve. Crawford was nowhere to be seen. Erith yelled something to her, but Rose didn't hear – she looked down the Hall towards the Squib Table, but from her distance couldn't tell if Ethan was among the Squibs.

"Mr. Chen – or should I say Professor Chen – will for the time being serve as an assistant teacher to High Inquisitor Crawford, to observe and assist until a time he is prepared to conduct his own classes,"

Rose's thoughts raced even as her ears rung with noise. Was this part of a plan between Ethan and McGonagall? What on earth were they playing at? There was no way Ethan's position could last. A move so outrageous – any support McGonagall still had with the Board of Governors would now surely evaporate – there would be no hope of overturning her Order of Suspension now. Crawford would take her place and throw Ethan out. Rose failed to see how this move served the Order of the Phoenix in any way.

"Though Professor Chen is still learning, he will be, in every sense of the word, a professor of this school, and accorded all the powers invested therein. I therefore implore all students to regard Professor Chen with the appropriate respect. And now, I leave you to Professor Chen to address you with a few words,"

From a corner of the Hall behind the High Table, a door opened and Ethan emerged, still wearing a student uniform. He stopped beside McGonagall, who briefly waved her wand over him. Ethan then cleared his throat; its sound carried across the Hall and squashed most its lingering chatter.

"You know, I can't tell you how emotional I am right now," said Ethan, a smug smile on his face. "I look back and remember all the fond memories I have of this school. It seems like only yesterday that my long journey of education and personal growth ended within this nurturing castle. And now I return to my alma mater among the ranks of its educators, hoping to bring the same quality of knowledge and guidance that was once bestowed on me," He twirled his wrists excessively in the air and emotionally brought his hands to his chest.

"What…the fuck…" mouthed Erith.

"I look forward to working with my colleagues and future students. With the camaraderie this school is famous for, I'm eager for us to cultivate a wholesome learning environment in the classroom, one that is both supportive and ambitious in the pursuit of wisdom. With your help –" Ethan's tone sunk a pinch lower. "– I can teach you more about Muggle society than anyone you have ever known. But we will both get nowhere if there is no cooperation. In the end, it is up to you if you want to be taught. That is all."

Ethan stepped back and started to leave the way he came with McGonagall. The Hall returned to wild muttering.

"What's 'camaraderie'?" asked Erith.

Rose was too occupied to answer her. She was watching Ethan converse with McGonagall on their way out, trying futilely to read their lips or body language for some clue.

"Seriously, maybe there _is_ a problem with this school," said Erith.

* * *

Professor Crawford appeared unable to concentrate on his lesson; he often lost his line as he read from the textbook, and supplemented the text with only the vaguest of elaboration. Standing at his desk, he glared straight down at his textbook, practically ignoring the class, and recited with unrestrained growls of frustration. Meanwhile, Ethan sat in a chair in a back corner of the classroom, shaking his foot over his knee.

"What on earth is McGonagall doing? This is so irresponsible. It's not like her at all," Iris whispered to Rose. They sat together in the middle of the classroom; Crawford was too preoccupied to censure their chatting.

"He's completely mental. He gave that speech to get back at Crawford, but he could have done that without winding up the entire school,"

"You watched it, too?" whispered back Rose.

"Everyone has. Every other person's carrying Rembaubles now to catch his next rant,"

Rose wondered if Ethan could spot them chatting, and that wonder turned into a paranoia that tingled the back of her neck. She turned her head around; Ethan was watching Crawford intently, like a stalking wolf. Then he caught her looking at him – Rose immediately turned her head back to the front of the class.

"I don't get it. Could have just ended his speech after insulting Crawford," vented Iris. "But he had to go on about the war. Was that really necessary to attack Crawford?"

Rose had thought about that herself after she watched a recording of Ethan's confrontation with Crawford yesterday. "I'm not sure he said it _just_ to antagonize Crawford. It's probably how he really feels about the war," she said tentatively.

"That doesn't mean you can just say it. If he weren't protected by the Order, half the school would have lynched him by now,"

"I think he just doesn't care about what people think of him," She remembered their exchange at the Chess Club, and the peculiar things he revealed about his way of thinking.

"That's impossible. Everyone cares," said Iris.

"As the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was being drafted, the Parliament of Muggle England was preparing to overthrow James II, in what is called the Glorious Revolution," said Crawford, reading off notes on his desk. "They gave the throne to James' son-in-law William of Orange and his daughter Mary II, under the condition that they approve of new laws set out in the Bill of Rights, restricting the monarchy's power. These laws include –"

"You know," Ethan spoke up, tapping his chin with a finger. "Isn't the title of this topic: 'Muggle politics'? I looked through the whole chapter last night, and I noticed that the content is heavily skewed towards the seventeenth to twentieth century. There's absolutely nothing here on the modern-day political climate,"

Crawford's jaw quivered. "I don't choose the books. Take it up with the Department of Education,"

"But you _did_ choose this book, from the list approved by the DOE," replied Ethan. "Of the lot, I have to say this must be the most uninformative. But hopefully your vast knowledge can make up for that, Crawford,"

"What do you want now?" Crawford groaned out, exasperated.

"Do you know which party currently controls Parliament?" Ethan waited a second for Crawford's silence, then continued. "Do you know each party's stance on the war and wizards? Who wants all wizards locked up and who's more amendable to peace? Do you?"

"That's not in the syllabus,"

Ethan snorted. "'Not in the syllabus'. Which is more important – learning the structure of the British government 300 years ago or the structure of the British government today?"

Ethan stood up and strode towards the front of the class, standing in front of Crawford. Ethan was looking for any reason to bully Crawford, Rose thought, even if it was unreasonable.

"Listen up, everyone. The U.K.'s two major political parties are the Conservative Party and the Labour Party…"

Ethan gave an overview of each party's platform and even of the factions within them. Rose and the rest of the class were caught on his every word. He told them of each party's stance towards the revelation of magic, wizards, and the current war. Basically, neither side was very accommodating towards wizards.

"Right now, no issue gets more bipartisan support than the stepping up of public security, and bringing the perpetrators of civilian attacks to justice. That would be the Knights of Walpurgis, who are really yourmain obstacle to peace, by the way,"

"The Knights are only the ones man enough to fight this war!" shouted one Slytherin. "They're the only ones still hitting Muggle military bases. All the Aurors do nowadays is hit oilfields or interrupt the Knights,"

"The Aurors don't hit military bases anymore because it's bloody suicide," Ethan countered calmly. "The Knights only manage it by using brainwash and domination spells, which, by the way, are the number one reason the Muggle public is terrified of wizards. But now we're drifting off-topic,"

Ethan continued to describe the current political climate of the Muggle U.K. All other political issues were thrown to the wayside owing to the critical wizarding threat. All sectors of the economy were sinking, save for the arms industry, and the British people were heavily dissatisfied with their government.

"The current Prime Minister and his administration are under fire from the Muggle public after revelation of the existence of MI7. I hope you guys know what MI7 is – it's the government agency that deals with magic-related affairs and communicates with your Ministry. People aren't happy from learning that their government had always known about the existence of magic and kept it a secret from them. Many of the Prime Minister's rivals are calling for his impeachment. This would be a very bad thing for wizards, for the same reason it would be a very bad thing if Cadogan's party loses your next election. And that –"

The lunch bell chimed, reaching their class from the distant bell towers. _It's lunch already?_ Rose checked her watch as though unconvinced that it was indeed noon. Ethan wasn't done speaking about Muggle politics, but he stopped and gestured to Crawford behind him. "Well, time's up. Sorry about that. Back to you, Crawford,"

The classroom door opened and revealed Headmistress McGonagall.

"Mr. Chen," She beheld the state of the classroom, with Ethan standing in front of the class. "May I speak with you outside?"

Ethan tilted his head back lazily. "Eh, can it wait? I'm hungry right now. Why don't you just speak to me at the High Table?"

It slightly irked Rose to hear Ethan speak so flippantly to McGonagall; not only because it was something no one else in school could get away with – it was also so unduly disrespectful. Somehow it didn't seem like Ethan to her.

"I'm afraid we can't do that. It regards a very important matter, about which we must speak privately,"

Ethan sighed. "All right, fine. Class dismissed," Ethan left the classroom with McGonagall. The class sat soundless, afraid to leave their seats. Then Crawford, grinding his teeth with a murderous look, stalked out of the classroom as well. Only after that did the class begin to depart.

Rose stared hard through the doorway, barely seeing her classmates leave through it; instead she fervently wondered where McGonagall and Ethan could have gone, and what manner of mysterious affairs they could be discussing.

"You want to know what they're talking about?" asked Iris, looking at what must be Rose's consternated expression.

"…Yes,"

Iris stood and picked up her school satchel. "Hurry, let's go,"

"Huh?"

Iris grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her out of the classroom. They went right down the hallway where they saw Ethan and McGonagall left, and a couple of turns later they heard Ethan's voice from around the next corner.

"So what happens now?"

"I am speaking to members of the Board privately to persuade them in taking the appropriate action. A number of them do feel that this conflict between myself and Chairman O'Neill has veered us away from our duty to this school,"

Iris stopped at the edge of the corner and peeked around it. Rose followed behind her, with a fast rising sense of impropriety.

"They haven't put up _Imperturbilis_ yet," whispered Iris, sounding surprised. She pulled out her wand and flourished the Listening Charm.

" _Ausculto,"_

With focus, Rose honed her mana sensitivity and sensed the arc of Iris's spell travelling from her wand to presumably Ethan. Mana sense was a vague intuitive knowledge of where magic _might_ be, so it was much harder to trust or even notice compared to one's other senses. Rose thought she sensed something else around Ethan, but at her distance from him, and not being able to see him, she couldn't be sure it wasn't her imagination or a random flux from the high magical ambience of Hogwarts.

Iris turned back and gestured for Rose to back away. "We can't stay here. Let's find a good spot to listen,"

Iris led her back and down an adjoining hallway, then into a hidden passage behind a tapestry. With a flourish, Iris duplicated the receiving end of her Listening Charm onto Rose; suddenly Ethan's voice was clear in her ears as if he was in front of her.

"Even if the Board doesn't like Crawford, they'll still take him over you," said Ethan. "Come Saturday, he's going to kick us both out. Then the Squibs. Then the rest of the staff. He'll get rid of the ghosts too if it's possible. How are we going to stop that?"

"We needn't worry about that anymore. We owe that to our guest today who is waiting for us behind this door,"

Rose heard the faint sound of a door opening, and then a deep, commanding voice.

"So – you cut your hair,"

"Minister Cadogan," greeted Ethan. "It's been a while,"

" _What?"_ hissed Iris. "Is that – the _Minister for Magic?_ "

Rose heard a door closing, followed by a coolness in her ears from dispelled magic – Iris's spell had been cut off by the door's Imperturbable Barrier.

* * *

"I sensed two Listening Charms on you before the door closed," said Balthazar Cadogan to Ethan, standing up from his seat in the guest lounge. "Whose were they?"

"There's no need to be concerned, Minister," said McGonagall. "One of them belonged to a student, who was only curious about Mr. Chen's conversation with myself. The other belonged to Inquisitor Crawford, whom I fully intended to spy on us,"

"Hmm," Cadogan calmly returned to his armchair. "Trying to imply that I have a relationship with the boy? I didn't know you possessed such deviousness,"

Cadogan was dressed as Ethan last saw him, and like most high officials of the Ministry: in a plain-coloured robe with a suit-type lapel, called suit robes, along with shirt and tie.

"We all have to adapt in these desperate times," McGonagall sat in another armchair across Cadogan.

"Yes, you must be quite desperate to have asked for my help," Cadogan turned his iron-eyed gaze up upon Ethan. "Since you _are_ harbouring one of our escaped prisoners of war,"

"I wonder how your voters would feel about the Ministry kidnapping children to serve as dominated POWs," said McGonagall.

"Like you said – desperate times. This boy is and was the only child brought in to help us. You know his accomplishments. Wizardkind would not have lasted this long if not for the information and expertise provided by him and the other captured Muggles,"

"Would you make that same explanation to the public if I were to give Ethan's story to the Daily Prophet?" McGonagall asked coolly.

Ethan was at first sceptical about the value of this threat. Most people, both wizards and Muggles, were already aware that the Ministry used dominated POWs, particularly to bail them out of the first few months of the war. Ethan distinctly remembered himself instructing Lowther's Spooks on computer network architecture, and what targets were most effective to hit. News of a fifteen-year-old being one of those dominated POWs would be a scandal, but one that people should get over quickly considering the Allied forces' progress on the war. Perhaps it was because of how weak the threat was that McGonagall was willing to play it if necessary.

The impact of the news would actually be strongest on the Muggle public; they would take it as further evidence that the current Ministry is too dangerous to make peace with and must be subjugated. Also, it was Harry Potter who kidnapped him. That would certainly be a blow to those wizards who considered him the preeminent hero of this conflict. He was probably underestimating how precariously close Cadogan's administration was to being replaced in the next election. Ultimately, the move was still risky; a powder keg didn't need much of a spark to burst in flames.

Cadogan grunted gruffly.

"Hmph. Lowther was perfectly fine with calling your bluff, but I have enough enemies as it is. I can't be seen fraternizing with the Order of the Phoenix, but we can still help each other,"

An interesting decision, thought Ethan. From one perspective, it was clearly in Cadogan's interest to let Crawford kick Ethan and McGonagall out of Hogwarts. Perhaps he doubted Lowther's ability to track Ethan once Harry Potter moved him to a more hidden location. But Cadogan has shown that he was not entirely opposed to the Order's operations – hopefully he was a little better than Lowther in recognizing the value Ethan could have to the Ministry alive rather than dead.

"I much appreciate that, Minister. I would prefer not to lower your reputation if possible," McGonagall looked behind her. "Mr. Chen, please take a seat,"

Cadogan smirked as Ethan sat down beside McGonagall. "Mr. Chen, eh? Congratulations on your new employment,"

"Why thank you," replied Ethan. "Much better than my last job. Professor McGonagall actually _asked_ for my help. Better benefits as well – larger living space, shorter working hours, variety in food, and free will,"

Cadogan regarded him sternly. "Do you want an apology?"

"No; I want to know if the rest of the prisoners are still being treated that way,"

Cadogan drummed his fingers over his armchair. "Yes, they are. People dominated by _Imperius_ are supposed to be blissfully calm and barely aware of their surroundings; if you were uncomfortable with the conditions you were in, you were just uncommonly resistant. However," He continued before Ethan or McGonagall could remark. "I am planning on releasing our prisoners soon. Lowther and his Spooks have learnt all that they can from them, and become competent enough in applying that knowledge themselves. I hope we can exchange them for some of our own held by the Allied Muggles,"

"Have you started those negotiations yet?" asked Ethan.

"Sorry, but I think we're drifting a little off-topic," said Cadogan. "I didn't come here to discuss the prisoners. Honestly, I only came here to see you for myself – it's not every day you hear of a Muggle kid teaching at Hogwarts,"

"What about the help you're giving us with Crawford?" Ethan glanced at McGonagall.

"Minister Cadogan has already done what he can," she replied.

"There is a limit to what I can do – the Ministry no longer has the sweeping powers over Hogwarts that it once had. But a few of the Board's term limits are coming up, and it is up to the Department of Education to re-appoint them. The Head of the DOE is my man, of course. I can have him pressure those members of the Board against dismissing you, Headmistress. It will be enough to undo the unanimous votes required for the Order of Suspension,"

That was hardly the end of their problems, though. Crawford and Chairman O'Neill would still be around and in power. "Is that all? Can't you do something to knock O'Neill off the Board?"

"Not directly, only through pressure. But it's not likely he will budge. Diarmuid O'Neill is part of the political opposition. I can nudge off as many of my own people as I like, but I try that with someone from the opposition and they call it a dictatorship. Besides, he's not the only member of the Board who disagrees with the Headmistress's recent decisions,"

"Huh. So that's it." Somehow, Ethan expected more out of this meeting, but he supposed it was foolish to begin with to expect anything out of others. Especially leaders like McGonagall and Cadogan who liked to portray themselves as capable.

"Well, I've dallied here long enough," Cadogan stood up. "It was certainly interesting –"

"Hold it," said Ethan. "There's something else,"

Cadogan eyed him dispassionately. "Is there?"

"Yes." Ethan sensed that Cadogan knew where he was going. "I suppose you know that I've joined the Order of the Phoenix. But I'm not much use here, without access to the Internet. I have to go to London, to the headquarters of the Order. But I couldn't do that before because I would be detected and stopped by the Ministry police. Then Lowther would arrive and either return me to the dungeons or just kill me. You said that the Order and the Ministry can help each other – let me go to London. I can be of great use to you both there,"

Cadogan stared down at him.

"No. I can't allow that. Lowther has told me about his very good reasons for wanting to kill you. It would be too dangerous to allow you into Muggle territory,"

McGonagall, who had allowed Ethan most of the talking, spoke again. "And why would that be? Is it perhaps to do with the Memory Charm Lowther has placed on Mr. Chen?" Cadogan didn't respond.

"These memories locked in my head…" said Ethan. "…they couldn't have anything to do with the Spooks Lowther has undercover in London, could it?" He watched Cadogan's response with utmost scrutiny.

The Minister faced him hard as stone. Eventually he spoke.

"You are a wanted criminal and have thrown your lot in with the Order. MI7 knows by now that you were in the Ministry and possess a great deal of information. They won't think twice about cracking your skull open to identify our Spooks. So it is in your best interest not to run off and join Mrs. Weasley. I'm afraid you'll have to do your best helping the Order from here,"

Cadogan turned to address McGonagall. "I'll let you keep him. But if you try anything to take him out of our sight, we _will_ take him back by force, alive or dead,"

On the wall beside them was a Floo fireplace, large enough for a man to stand in. Cadogan stepped towards it and reached for a tray, sitting on an arm-high shelf protruding from the mantle. From the tray he plucked a fistful of silvery powder and stepped into the fireplace's ashy hearth.

"The Ministry of Magic," Cadogan threw the powder at his feet, and the fireplace erupted in a flash of emerald flames. The flames engulfed Cadogan, concealing him, and in the second that the flames gushed and vanished, Cadogan vanished with them.

* * *

Iris seemed to be having a very difficult time believing that they had just heard the Minister for Magic in the room that Ethan and McGonagall entered.

"It sounded like him…but what is he doing here? And how does E – that guy know him?" Iris cried in a fluster.

"Well, Ethan was an informant for the Ministry," said Rose.

"Do you think he reported directly to the Minister himself?" Iris replied, incredulous. "Ugh, the way he greeted him…always so rude and cocky," Iris shook her head, disapproving of something.

Rose's thoughts battered at the door that Ethan and McGonagall entered, agonizing over whatever was going on behind it. "What do you think they're talking about?"

Iris crossed her arms in thought. "I don't know…maybe it's to do with Ethan becoming a professor. Maybe it's illegal or something," She said spitefully.

"The Minister wouldn't come down himself for that," said Rose. She recalled the exchange between Ethan and McGonagall before they entered the room. "Ethan and Professor McGonagall were talking about Crawford, how to stop him from sacking the staff…"

"Oh. Oh yeah," said Iris, recalling it herself. "So the Minister is helping McGonagall against the Board…but why would he? The Minister doesn't seem to gain anything from that…"

"…Maybe the Minister is negotiating with the Order…or the Order is negotiating with him…" Rose murmured more to herself than to Iris.

Iris let her mull over the possibilities for a while before speaking. "There's a million things we could speculate is going on…we should wait for them to come out. Maybe we'll hear something else,"

They stood in silence for about a minute, each occupied by their own questions. Then Rose's multi-mirror heated up and she pulled it from her robes. On its surface was Lily, but Rose could barely make her out through the dimly lit area she was in.

"Rose!" Lily exclaimed. "The Minister for Magic is at Hogwarts! I see his name on the Map! He's in a room with Ethan and McGonagall!"

Iris's brows rose at Lily's words. Rose stepped quickly out of her earshot. "You're using the Map again?" hissed Rose into the mirror. "You shouldn't use it so frequently – it's not right to spy on people,"

Lily looked miffed at her. "Then what are you and Iris doing in a hidden passage so close to them?"

The sound of brisk footsteps approached from deeper down the passage. Soon Lily emerged, her path lit by sconces that automatically lit as she passed.

Lily stepped up to Rose and Iris. "So, what's going on in there?" she asked with no small hint of excitement.

"No idea," replied Iris. "The room's Imperturbable. What's this about a map? How do you know the Minister's here?"

"Huh? Map? What are you talking about?" said Lily, a little too nervously.

"I saw you pull out a sheet of parchment yesterday after we talked. Then you suddenly knew that O'Neill was lurking outside the Squib Quarters,"

"You two talked yesterday?" Rose said, surprised. "What about?"

"Sorry Rose, but we can't change the topic right now. How did you know about O'Neill?" Iris demanded of Lily.

"Like I said I just…saw him," Lily said evasively. Then her eyes darted to something behind them. "Ethan!"

Rose and Iris spun around. Ethan had just entered through the tapestry and walked up to them.

"…Huh." He beheld the three of them strangely. A moment later his expression returned to its usual composure. "So, whose idea was it, this illicit eavesdropping session?"

Rose turned to Iris at the same time that she turned to her. Ethan eyed them both and cracked a small smile.

"Eavesdropping ill becomes a pair of prefects,"

"We didn't hear anything," said Iris curtly.

"Were you talking to the Minister for Magic, Ethan?" Lily piped in.

Ethan considered for a second. "Yes. Cadogan is helping the school with its problem with Crawford. He'll have the Department of Education apply some pressure on the Board of Governors, so they won't vote to dismiss McGonagall this Saturday. See?" He smiled to their surprised faces. "Asking is so much easier, isn't it? But please try to keep this a secret until it officially happens. Don't tell anyone about the Minister's visit either; he would prefer not to reveal his involvement,"

Rose was blown away by this piece of information. But quickly she realized that this couldn't be all that was discussed in that room. A personal visit wasn't required for such an arrangement. And why was Ethan at the meeting – what could the Minister have wanted with him?

"How many members of the Board can the DOE turn?" Iris asked sharply.

"I don't know, but Cadogan said 'a few'. Those coming to the end of their terms,"

"Hmm." Iris crossed her arms again. "If it's not more than a third of the Board, it won't be enough. The Board will just grant Crawford more powers to get rid of you and the school's staff. You can't stop the Board without first getting rid of Crawford,"

For a moment, Ethan appeared impressed at Iris's political acuity. "You're right. I appreciate your concern, but you needn't worry about us. If it comes to that…I'll do something about it,"

Iris bristled. "I'm not worried about _you_ ," She snapped. "I'm only worried about our teachers,"

"You know that includes me now, right?"

"You're not a teacher," Iris spat heatedly. "I don't give a damn about you – after that speech about how we can't win the war – you're by far the most hated person in this school – more people will rather see you go than Crawford,"

Rose thought that was too harsh, if it had been directed at anyone save for Ethan. Anyone else would have been hurt, but Ethan's ego was surely too callous to be hurt by words.

As she expected, Ethan only smiled in response. "I suppose that includes you?"

Iris appeared to simmer down for some reason. "…Of course,"

Ethan looked to Lily and Rose. "What about you two?"

Rose almost spoke, but her words stopped in her throat. Lily didn't say anything either.

"Never mind." Smirking, Ethan turned back to Iris. "Sorry to disappoint you and more people, but I'm not going anywhere," He took a glance at his wristwatch.

"I strongly suggest that you keep your distance from both me and Crawford for a while. No more eavesdropping. Or else…I'll have to give you detention," He turned to leave.

"Hold on," said Rose. "What do you mean –"

"You know," Ethan cut over her. "The last few days have been pretty exhausting for me. I know you don't care, but I intend to use this lunch break to eat lunch and retire to my quarters,"

On closer inspection, Ethan did indeed seem less energetic the last few days. Keeping up his verbal aggression on Crawford had to take considerable forethought and effort. And his attention seemed dispersed, as if he had something heavy weighing on his mind.

"Wait!" Lily trotted up to Ethan as he walked away. "Ethan, are you planning something?" Rose thought she heard a peek of hopefulness in her voice.

"…No. At least, not yet,"

"Well, if you need my help again, just ask,"

"'Again'? What are you talking about?" questioned Iris.

"I helped Ethan out yesterday, when he was taking the piss out of Crawford. I counter-spelled all his spells," Lily beamed proudly.

"Ah. Of course," mumbled Iris. "Of course that stuff about high magic resistance was just rubbish,"

"For Lily's sake, you shouldn't repeat this to anyone outside this passage," said Ethan, a warning in his tone. He frowned at Lily. "You shouldn't have blurt that out,"

"I won't tell on Lily," Iris said indignantly. "You actually think I would do such a thing?"

"It's fine," Lily said dismissively before Ethan could respond. "I don't care if people find out," She clenched her fists excitedly. "It was so mean…but it felt _so good_ ,"

Ethan let out a chuckle. It actually shocked Rose due to how different it sounded to his usual, deliberate sniggers of mockery and condescension.

"Oh, I almost forgot," said Lily. "Congratulations Ethan, on your err, new job!"

There was a slight pause before Ethan responded. "Why thank you. I look forward to many fruitful years in my new illustrious career in teaching,"

Lily smiled at Ethan's wisecrack. "You've been here for four weeks and now you're a professor,"

"It's only been four weeks?" said Ethan, amazed. "Huh. Feels a lot longer than that,"

Lily giggled lightly. "Ha, yeah, I know. That's because of you and all the crazy stuff you've done,"

"Crazy, huh? Don't give me all the credit – you helped make some of that craziness possible,"

 _When did…when did they become so familiar?_ Rose knew that Lily was quite friendly with everyone, but Ethan – Ethan was always intense, guarded, and deliberate in every action. Not like he was behaving now. And Rose hadn't seen Lily so cheery since they were out of school.

"So you're not taking classes anymore?" asked Lily.

"Nope. I already miss sitting in class doing nothing,"

"Well, now you can do that as a teacher! So, do I have call you sir now?"

Ethan gave a short laugh. "No. I think I'm going to go for the 'cool' teacher thing. Ethan is fine,"

"When will you start teaching?"

"Hmm. I don't know, but soon. I'm still 'observing' for now,"

"I talked to your friends Timothy and Varun; they said you moved out of your dorm room last night,"

"I did. I have an office now. Seventh floor, east wing,"

Lily was ecstatic for him. "Your own _office_?! That's awesome! How big is it?"

"Bigger than I know what to do with. It has a god damn kitchen. I could show you around right now if you want,"

"Let's go!"

Iris hurried forward. "Lily, hold it!"

"What?"

"You can't just enter his office with him! What if someone sees you?" Iris pressed severely.

"What's the big deal?" retorted Lily.

"Do I have to – people are still wondering what your relationship with Ethan is," Iris dropped to a worried tone.

"…Then I'll just use a Disillusionment Charm,"

"Turning invisible is against the rules," replied Iris.

Lily frowned irritably. "That's rich, coming from a prefect that can't stop casting Listening Charms on every conversation in school,"

Iris maintained her calm explanation. "Just yesterday Ethan himself said that it's not good to be seen chatting with him. He was _just_ warning us earlier to keep our distance from him,"

Ethan's expression widened in realization of something.

"Some other time, Lily," He spoke coolly. "There's nothing special about the office anyway – I suppose you're all already familiar with what one looks like," He glanced again at his wristwatch. "I think we've all wasted enough time in this dark passage. Enjoy your lunch, ladies," He brushed the tapestry aside and left.

A few moments after, Lily whirled on Iris.

"What is your problem with Ethan?" she demanded.

"'What is my problem'? Where do I even start?" Iris cried indignantly. "The sheer madness he's put me through – put all of us through since he got here – you said it yourself,"

"But all those things turned out for the better for you, didn't it?" Lily countered sharply.

"Th –" Iris stuttered. "That wasn't his intention,"

"'Not his intention'? If you haven't realized – all the stuff he's done was him helping us,"

"'Help'? That's easy for you to say," Iris said darkly. "You've never been on the receiving end of his 'help'. But if you keep chumming it up with him, some day you will. Then you'll know what he's really like,"

"I'm not blind. I know Ethan can be…harsh, but he's not a _'_ despicable person', Iris," said Lily, her voice rising enough to echo down the passage.

"You don't know him, you don't know what he's done. He –" Iris halted and revised her words. "He's a wanted criminal. You know what that means? If he has a reason, there's nothing he won't do to you. How can you feel safe around someone like that?"

Lily paused. "R-Rose, back me up," She turned to her expectantly.

There was such a whirlwind of clashing opinions in Rose that she didn't know how to start. "…Y-You both have fair points,"

Lily groaned aloud in exasperation. "Ugh. After everything he's done for you – I'm going to lunch," She stormed off through the tapestry. Her echoing footsteps faded and soon left the dark passageway in silence, leaving Rose to feel absolutely awful.

* * *

As Ethan strolled down the Great Hall, students hushed their chatter to eye him warily. He walked down the middle aisle, between the tables of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and took the opportunity to glower menacingly at the group of Ravenclaws that once enchanted his food to fly or explode in his face. He had already given each of them three sessions of weekend detention and promised them more if they ever so much as looked at his plate while he was eating. The Ravenclaws shrank from his gaze.

It was a subdued Saturday evening dinner. News of the Board of Governors meeting had reached the school before the evening bell. As Cadogan promised, three of the twelve members of the Board abstained in the vote to dismiss McGonagall as Headmistress. But Chairman O'Neill still had a super majority of the Board on his side; with it he gave the High Inquisitor all its old powers from when the position was first invented over twenty years ago.

Namely, the Inquisitor received the ability to inspect and evaluate teachers, and the authority to dismiss them at his singular discretion. No doubt by tomorrow, Crawford will be handing out termination papers like Halloween candy, starting with Ethan. It was a wonder that O'Neill didn't start with this move to begin with, but Ethan supposed the battle for Hogwarts wasn't so escalated until now.

"Hey Ethan! Come sit with us!" Professor Thomas called from the left wing of the High Table. To his left was Professor Longbottom, to whose left was Professor Flitwick. Flitwick's chair legs were magically extended to allow him to reach the table. Ethan took the empty seat to Thomas' right and pulled in a dish of shepherd's pie.

"Oh, not this again," Flitwick lamented in his squeaky voice in his conversation with Longbottom. "It's a little too soon for history to repeat itself,"

"Well, he can't sack us all at once, can he?" said Longbottom uncertainly. "I mean, he has to find replacements,"

Flitwick's cottony moustache fluttered as he sighed. "Chairman O'Neill prepared our replacements a while ago. Men cut from the same cloth as Crawford. I won't be surprised if he's signing our Orders of Dismissal right now,"

Since Ethan's confrontation with him in the Great Hall, Crawford had taken to eating in his own office with meals brought up to him by house-elves. Even as he was attempting to ruin the school, his own life was becoming abjectly miserable – just according to Ethan's intention.

"So Ethan," said Thomas after Ethan sat down. "I hear you were extremely rude to Crawford yesterday. You pretty much stepped over half his time in every class?"

"Closer to a third of lesson time, but yes,"

After witnessing him enter a secret meeting with Cadogan, Crawford gave up challenging Ethan on the verbal front. For all of Friday's Muggle Studies classes, Crawford said nothing to Ethan's interruptions and let him essentially take over the class any time he wanted.

"I watched footage of one of your 'lectures'," continued Thomas. "Good strong voice, solid command of attention. Honestly I was concerned if the M.S. students' grades were being sacrificed to protect you, but I think you have a gift for teaching,"

"Thank you, Professor Thomas," Ethan said graciously.

"Neville was a wreck when he started teaching. His first students say it was months before he first looked up at his class,"

"Dean! I'm right here," cried Longbottom. Thomas laughed and slapped Longbottom on the back with a 'sorry, mate.'

"You know Ethan," Flitwick leaned forward to see him over the table. "You're actually the second youngest person to have ever taught at Hogwarts. The youngest in our records is a Birtle Frickleton, who graduated from Hogwarts at thirteen and started teaching Arithmency the next term,"

"Ethan, your birthday is in December, isn't it?" Longbottom said, scratching his beard stubble for a moment. "That would actually make Harry the second youngest, if you count him," He said in a lower voice to Thomas.

"Still, you are definitely the first Muggle to teach at Hogwarts," said Flitwick.

Ethan was getting quite uncomfortable from all the niceness and flattery directed at him. He could guess why the teachers were doing so; since Longbottom knew his birthday, it meant that McGonagall had shared the details of Ethan's penned history to at least some of her staff. Ethan did not care for their sympathy, and had half a mind to call them out on it if they continued for a minute longer.

"I suppose that's an accomplishment in a way," Ethan replied Flitwick thoughtfully. "So – what's the record for shortest time of employment?"

Thomas snorted and Longbottom gave a wan smile.

"Oh ho, eager to break more records?" squeaked Flitwick with a chuckle, before shaking his head woefully. "Alas, I'm afraid you might soon get your wish,"

"So what's our move now?" asked Thomas.

Flitwick stroked one side of his fluffy moustache. "Hmm. I'm not sure. We could organize a protest, I suppose. Ask parents to write to the Board members…I wonder how many will support us…"

"McGonagall says she's going to step down tomorrow," said Longbottom quietly. "And plead for us to keep our jobs,"

Thomas shook his head. "Doesn't matter. The Board will get rid of all of us sooner or later. We're all in the Order,"

"I'll take care of Crawford. Tonight, possibly,"

The three professors stared at Ethan.

Thomas started first. "Wait, this wouldn't have anything to do with what I showed you last night, would it?" he asked apprehensively.

"The less anyone else knows, the better," Ethan said flatly.

"You're not planning something…dangerous are you?" asked Longbottom. "You can't. You're too valuable to the Order,"

"All right there, Neville," Flitwick patted his arm to assuage him. "Remember that Ethan is not a student anymore," Flitwick faced Ethan solemnly. "Will anyone be harmed or implicated by this plan of yours?"

"Only Crawford and myself, possibly,"

Flitwick nodded. "Then do what you must."

"Wait," said Thomas. "What you're doing Ethan…maybe I should do it,"

"No." said Ethan. "The best chance of success is if I do it. I've been setting him up for it. I have experience."

Thomas took in his firm countenance and resigned with a sigh. "I guess…we're counting on you, Ethan. Again."

* * *

Now that Ethan was a teacher, it was reasonable to assume that McGonagall would also trust him enough to also make him a member of the Order. In that case, it didn't make sense that he should remain at Hogwarts, when his hacking skills would be better put to use in London, helping Rose's mother with all computer-related matters. Rose's parents could Apparate to Hogwarts and take him back in an instant.

The only reason Rose could think of for why Ethan wasn't heading to London, was that he couldn't; because he would be stopped or hurt by someone – either the Ministry or the Muggle agency MI7 that monitored Rose's parents.

The Ministry monitored all movement to and from Muggle territory; one had to state their purpose in heading there beforehand, lest they be followed by wizard police upon Apparition. The Ministry opposed the Order's support for a conditional surrender, but as far as Rose knew, they weren't actively undermining their activities. If the Ministry would stop Ethan from entering Muggle territory, it had to be for a reason to do with Ethan himself. But what could that reason be? Did he have information the Ministry did not want in Muggle hands? Did they suspect he would betray them? If that was the case, they should be attempting to take Ethan into custody.

Actually, why was Ethan released from the Ministry in the first place? Rose and most others assumed it would be because he had no more information to provide. For what reason did Ethan first volunteer to be an informant? What if…he didn't volunteer? Rose had heard nothing at all about Muggle informants, though she assumed that was because the Ministry would want to conceal their identity from Muggle intelligence.

But she had heard about dominated Muggle prisoners, a controversial measure to which her mother voiced her disapproval in first months of the war. It was hard to imagine a dominated prisoner asking to join the Order, or not trying his hardest to escape Hogwarts and contact the Muggle military. Unless…he was currently still dominated. But the professors of their school should have sensed that immediately and lifted the curse, she couldn't imagine them choosing not to do so. But if he was dominated, the Ministry would have no reason to release him; that meant he escaped the Ministry without their consent. That would put the visits by the Head of Intelligence and the Minister in a whole new perspective.

But that line of questioning was tangential to the main mystery of why Ethan couldn't leave to London. Besides the Ministry, there was MI7. The reason they might be the reason was more obvious: despite protecting and providing for her parents in London, they might capture Ethan to hinder the Order's attempts at a peaceful resolution to the war. They would use the excuse that Ethan was a wanted criminal in the United States.

That was by far the simpler possibility…but did that necessarily make it more likely? If MI7 was why Ethan couldn't go to London…then she just lost the grounding for all her previous speculation about Ethan's relation to the Ministry. Rose felt like she was stabbing blindly into the dark that was Ethan's utter mystery; without evidence of any kind, all it amounted to was rampant conjecture. And that did nothing to assuage this fixation that gnawed at her at every unoccupied moment.

"Rose, what are you doing? You're messing up your hair," asked Lily.

Rose looked up from their library study table. She had been rubbing her head repeatedly for over a minute, while staring down at her Potions assignment.

"What are you cracking your head over? It can't be your homework," Lily was sitting across from her, doing her homework as well. Usually in their homework sessions, Lily would ask for her help for anything she had difficulty with. But this evening she mostly kept her eyes down and unusually hadn't said anything at all.

"It's nothing," Rose replied.

Lily pulled a frown. "You told me you hate it when people say 'it's nothing' when there's obviously something,"

Rose did say that before, but to be more specific it was when people who clearly wanted to talk about their grievances said 'it's nothing' to get the other party to show more concern. Rose disliked that sort of petty dishonesty.

"I'm just…thinking hard about something," Rose simply didn't think her wild guesswork was worth sharing with Lily.

"Are you worried about your mum and dad?"

"I am…but it wasn't that,"

"Did someone try to have a go at you again? Because of your parents?"

Rose shook her head. "No, that hasn't happened in a long time. Everyone's focused –" She paused. "– on Ethan now,"

That brought Rose back to the short row Lily and Iris had yesterday, and Rose's indecisiveness in backing Lily up.

"Lily, I'm sorry,"

"No. I'm sorry – for getting mad at you yesterday," Lily gushed out. "I understand if you don't like Ethan. He doesn't make himself very likeable,"

Lily and Rose had quarrels before, but they could never bear to be mad at each other for long. "I don't…I don't dislike him really. It's just…there's so much we don't know about him," Rose's heart churned guiltily. "But you were right. He's done a lot for me…with no gain for himself,"

Lily brightened considerably with the air between them cleared. "Yeah – he's really weird, isn't he?"

They continued on their homework peacefully. A couple minutes later, Rose noticed something odd with Lily's eye movement; she was darting between her homework and something on her lap.

"Are you looking at your multi-mirror?" asked Rose.

"Huh?" Lily looked up. "Uh…"

Rose looked underneath the table at Lily's lap. On it was the Marauder's Map that Lily received on her birthday from Uncle Harry.

"Lily, what are you doing with the map?" she exclaimed, but not too loudly, since they were in the library.

Lily dithered. "Um, you know. Just watching over the school, making sure nothing funny's going on,"

"Lily…" said Rose, slightly upset. Lily was a terrible liar, and Rose liked that about her, but it didn't stop her from trying once in a while.

Lily caved in quickly. "Alright, don't get all pouty. I'm keeping an eye on Ethan. You remember what he said yesterday. I know he's up to something,"

After a quick glance around, Lily laid the map out on the middle of the table. Upon the large multi-folded sheet of parchment was every detail of Hogwarts: every sprawling floor and tower, every hidden passage, and every inch of the grounds. And every person in the castle and grounds was tracked with a dot bearing a caption of their name. One was like to turn dizzy if they attempted to take in the entirety of the map and its activity all at once.

Uncle Harry said that the map was created by his father and his friends when they were students at Hogwarts, utilized mainly to commit acts of mischief. Such an extraordinary piece of magic more than resembled the Ministry Oculus Array Rose had read about in books. Rose supposed that the Marauder's Map must be illicitly picking up a magical signal from Hogwarts' own Oculus-like monitoring system. If any teacher caught them with the map, it would surely be confiscated.

" _Imperturbilis,"_ Rose cast a dome around their table, taking them out of sight and hearing. "Seriously, Lily, Uncle Harry didn't give you the map for you to spy on people,"

Lily mused for a second. "Um, what else am I supposed to use it for? Anyway," She pointed to a room in the east wing of the seventh floor. "Here's Ethan. In his office,"

Rose found the dot labelled 'Ethan Chen' where Lily pointed, sitting stationary near the middle of his room.

"What is he doing?" asked Rose. Unfortunately the map wasn't detailed enough to feature furniture.

"I don't know, maybe just chilling? Earlier he was in this corner, which I think is the kitchen like in Slughorn's office. It looked like he was cooking something,"

Rose stared at Lily. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Only since Tuesday,"

"Are you trying to find out more about what he's doing with the Order?"

Lily blinked. "The Order? But he's not with the Order yet, is he?"

"McGonagall said that they're considering him, but he might be by now," Rose found out it odd that Lily would track Ethan but not be curious about his connection to the Order. "Have you spied on anyone else?"

"Nope. Only Ethan. Look, he's moving!"

The two of them followed Ethan's dot moving out of his office and down the Grand Staircase. He left at the fourth floor and went down the west wing hallway.

"Is he coming here?" Lily wondered aloud. "Oh shit, he's heading towards Crawford's office!"

"What's he going to do?" breathed Rose.

"C'mon, let's go!"

Lily shoved the Marauder's Map, her homework, quill and ink bottle into her bag. Rose packed her things as well and followed her out of the library. They rushed towards the main west wing hallway, but halted in their tracks as they spotted Crawford stomping past them. They crept up just behind the corner of the adjoining hallway, pressed up against it, and poked around it to watch Crawford confront Ethan.

"You did this!" Crawford bellowed, throwing his finger at Ethan.

"I beg your pardon?" said Ethan, sounding surprised but unfazed by Crawford's yell. Rose could only barely hear Ethan from their distance; Lily quickly cast a Listening Charm on him and duplicated the receiving half onto Rose.

"My office is crawling with some kind of putrid mould! You did this to me!" Crawford roared, completely enraged. His yell doubled like an echo in Rose's ears, ringing them twice over.

"I was just on my way to the library," Ethan defended himself serenely. "And don't all offices have magical locks? How do you suppose I did whatever you think I did?"

"You must have had help!"

"Well, whether or not I did it, you first need to do something about that mould, don't you think?"

Crawford let out a maddened growl. "Caretaker!"

The school caretaker Kleaner materialized in a puff of smoke in between the two.

"My office is infested with some rampant mould. Clean it up!"

"Y-Yes Inquisitor sir," Kleaner bowed deeply and disappeared in another puff of smoke. The lingering white smoke had barely drifted before he popped back in again.

"Kleaner is sorry sir. But it is Permacillin – it cannot be removed without a special cleaning potion and special cleaning supplies," Kleaner bowed his head low and rubbed his hands nervously.

"Then get them," Crawford hissed impatiently.

"Y-Yes. There is a stock of supplies in the Room of Requirement sir. But Kleaner is not authorized to access the room hisself. If you could sir…"

"Argh, fine!" Crawford stormed past Ethan towards the Grand Staircase. Kleaner ran after him, and Ethan began to follow.

"We got to follow them," Lily started out of the corner, but Rose grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Wait, he'll spot you like that," All Ethan had to do was turn around at the sound of their footsteps. Rose cast a Disillusionment Charm upon both of them. _"Dissimulo,"_

"Oh, good idea!" Lily looked down at her body, which had become near-invisible by bending light around it to the wall behind her. The two of them emerged from the corner to tail Ethan. He immediately turned around.

Lily and Rose froze still – if they moved, Ethan would be able to see their outlines. He squinted in their direction for several long seconds.

"Hmm. Thought I heard something," Ethan murmured to himself. He turned back and continued his way after Crawford and Kleaner. "Time to finish this,"

Lily crouched low and breathed a sigh. "We need a Muffled Step Charm,"

Rose silently cast the enchantment over their feet. Now their footsteps would make no sound even as they ran after Ethan.

"Great – quick, we're losing him!"

They chased Ethan down the Grand Staircase to the third floor and through a few corridors. They kept about a dozen paces from him, ready to freeze at any time in case he turned around. Rose's heart pounded as the loudest thing in her ears; they had come to a remote corridor that Rose didn't know existed. At the end of the corridor was Crawford, pacing left and right in front of the dead end. After passing the wall three times, a door emerged from the wall like from a water's surface. Crawford opened it and stepped inside.

"Hurry – oh, where's your hand?" Lily grabbed at the air until she took Rose's wrist. "We need to sneak in right after Ethan!"

Kleaner entered the room and Ethan followed after. Lily crept up right behind Ethan, pulling Rose along. They passed the doorway into the pitch-dark, unlit room and darted out of the way just as Ethan closed the door behind him.

Crawford lit the room's chandelier, revealing an enormous storeroom of sorts for cleaning supplies. There were cupboards filled with magical cleaning potions, a row of Mrs Skower's Self-Sweeping Brooms and Self-Mopping Mops, buckets, scours, brushes, and stranger-looking contraptions that Rose didn't recognize.

"Hmm, so this is the Room of Requirement," said Ethan. "Does it do more than cleaning supplies?"

"Yes sir," answered Kleaner. "The Room can change shape and conjure anything sir is needing of it. Anything that the Room cannot conjure, it can retrieve from its storage of what others have put in before,"

"Really? How do I conjure something?" asked Ethan.

"Sir is only needing to think hard that sir needs something, and what sir needs shall appear," said Kleaner. "Ah, but only the host can change the room sir – the host is the person who first creates the Room,"

"Which would be me," Crawford turned around, facing Ethan. "Why are you here?" He growled menacingly.

"Oh, don't mind me – I just wanted to see the Room," Ethan took to examining the walls, ceiling and objects around.

Crawford glared down at Kleaner. "What are you waiting for? Clean up my office!"

"Y-Yes sir," Kleaner scurried to collect an armful of potions, a bucket, and an artefact resembling a chainsaw with brush bristles. As Kleaner came close to colliding with Lily and Rose, they scooted aside to the right wall of the room. After gathering his supplies, Kleaner vanished, leaving Crawford and Ethan staring at each other, Lily and Rose watching from the side with bated breath.

The angry creases along Crawford's face tightened. "What do you want?"

"I imagine that you're busy preparing Orders of Dismissal for the whole teaching staff. What's taking you so long?" Ethan asked.

"They're already signed," said Crawford, with a hint of triumph. "I was just making calls to their replacements,"

"I don't think you'll need to bother them," said Ethan. "No staff is leaving this school. Except you," His voice was icily slow and steady.

Crawford scoffed. "And how are you going to do that? The Board is on my side,"

Ethan was more serious than Rose had ever seen him; he was still as darkness, his eyes hard and unmoving.

"That may be true, but you and the Board of Governors aren't thinking of the future. You've already lost, Crawford. You've lost unanimity of the Board, so you'll never be Headmaster like you've always wanted. A dramatic change like this will not go unopposed by the students. And their parents will not accept reliable teachers being removed because of a political struggle. You know full well that the Ministry is on our side, and will seize the chance to clean out the Board with public backing. You think this is the eve of your victory, but in truth, this is only proof that you've run out of reasonable moves. All you're doing now is kicking and screaming your way down to failure."

"You're wrong," spat Crawford. "This is not a desperate move – Chairman O'Neill has been planning this for a long time. McGonagall is the one who's been making dramatic changes – nonhuman teachers, house-elves with salaries, house-elves taking _our_ jobs, allowing Squibs into a _wizard school_ – and _you_ ," Crawford's voice sizzled with hate. "Making _you_ a teacher is the last straw. No one will argue that Hogwarts is out of control and needs to be cleaned out. If McGonagall doesn't leave, then everyone else will! Either way, I win! Even the Ministry doesn't have the power to interfere!"

Ethan stared callously as though he was observing an ant.

"It seems you don't understand your own situation at all. This isn't your victory, Crawford. You are just a pawn to be sacrificed. All this time, your purpose has been to scout how far McGonagall can be pushed, the lengths she will go to protect her students and staff. If you were to find yourself in trouble – and you will, trying to hold this school together – O'Neill won't lift a finger to save you. You're just meant to clear the way for someone else, possibly O'Neill himself,"

"You…have no proof," Crawford barked. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"I think it's time for you to quietly resign. This is your last chance to leave unscathed. For all the times you've turned a blind eye to Squibs and other students being bullied, you deserve worse, but everyone deserves a chance to save themselves,"

Crawford bared his clenched teeth. Rose could almost hear their screeching as he ground them together.

"You fucking Muggle," he finally spat. "You think, with your fucking lies, you can trick me into leaving when I've already won? _NO! I will NOT leave!_ The only one here leaving is _you_ – you worthless mudspawn!"

"…So that is your answer?" Ethan's entire countenance was like a soundless blizzard – cold, quiet, but furious. "I gave you a chance, and you've tossed it aside,"

"You know something, Crawford? You're a model example of why you wizards are so doomed in this war. You can't handle the truth of how miniscule you are, so you crush those beneath you to feel bigger. You think yourself so superior, but your ignorance has allowed me, a 'fucking Muggle', to humiliate you time and again,"

"Shut up!" Crawford was growing more crazed and beastly the more Ethan spoke.

Ethan's volume slowly rose with every line, as did the mocking venom in his voice. His rising fury was like a looming avalanche.

"Do you know how pathetic you are? I am probably the greatest nightmare you have ever faced, but to me…you're not even close to a worthy enemy. Before I came out here, I faced worse people than you on a weekly basis. You are over forty years old, with no wife, no family, and nothing to your name. This is your final shot at meaning something, and you are going to fail miserably, and waste away the rest of your life without anyone giving a damn,"

"Shut up! Not another word, you filthy Muggle –"

"Or what?" Ethan taunted. "You can't even stick a decent jinx on me! You're a failure as a wizard! Even a Killing Curse from you will bounce right off!"

" _I will fucking kill you, you monster!"_ Crawford pulled out his wand and aimed it at Ethan.

Ethan grinned madly. " _You_ kill _me?_ I don't think so!"

Ethan reached into the sleeve of his robes. A blast of magic fired from Crawford's wand and sent Ethan crashing against the door. He tried to push himself up against the door, but slumped back down.

Rose's breath caught in her throat. Blood – blood was blooming out of Ethan's chest, bright red on his white shirt. Ethan clutched his chest, reached through an opening in his button shirt…and pulled out a small knife from it, covered to the handle in blood. Ethan dropped it weakly, and the blade clattered on the stone floor.

Crawford used a Knockback Jinx, how did – it was the Room that conjured the knife in Ethan's chest. But it was some distant, faraway Rose that made the realization. The Rose that was in the Room could not even think.

" _ETHAN!"_ Lily screamed.

"What? Who was that?" yelled Crawford, wild with panic. His wand whirled over in their direction. _"Stupefy!"_

Rose was too paralyzed to think of deflecting the spell. The red beam closed in – and struck against an invisible barrier. Crawford's spell split and dissipated.

"What? Who's there?!" Crawford cried. He swung his wand frenziedly for another spell.

"Crawford!"

With his bloody hand, Ethan threw something at Crawford. Suddenly arcs of electricity wrapped around Crawford's body – he shuddered, screaming – and collapsed to the floor, unmoving.

Ethan stood up and peered in their direction. "Lily? Is that you?"

"E-Ethan?" Lily answered.

Ethan hung his head. "Damn it. Kleaner,"

Kleaner appeared in front of Lily and Rose – not from Apparition, but emerging from invisibility.

"Get McGonagall here now," said Ethan urgently.

"Yes sir," Kleaner Disapparated away.

Ethan turned away, holding his face in his palm. He then went over to Crawford's body and turned him on his back with his foot. He bent down to check the pulse on Crawford's neck.

"Interesting. Definitely not ordinary electricity, or he'd be dead,"

McGonagall Apparated into the room, Kleaner in tow. As she scanned the scene, she spotted Lily and Rose and made eye contact as if they were plain as day.

"We have a problem," said Ethan. "Crawford heard Lily cry out my name,"

McGonagall nodded.

"I see. Not a problem; I shall take him to the Room of Requirement and use the Confundus Charm,"

McGonagall twirled her wand and Crawford disappeared by targeted Disapparition. She turned on the spot and Disapparated herself.

Ethan peered again at Lily and Rose's direction. "Is that Rose? You're here, too?"

Rose didn't reply; her mind was focused singularly on the great spill of blood on Ethan's shirt – it had run down to his belt, yet he was standing as though completely fine.

"Are either of you hurt?" asked Ethan.

"U-Uh, I'm fine," Lily looked down at her near-invisible self. "Rose, you all right?" Lily lightly touched her arm.

Rose shook out of her frozen thoughts. "I-I'm fine,"

"Good," Ethan looked down to Kleaner. "Good work, Kleaner,"

"Thank you sir," Kleaner bowed. "…Would you like a chair to sit on, sir?"

"No, thank you," Ethan considered a moment and looked down at his shirt. "But can you clean this fake blood with a spell?"

"Yes sir," Kleaner waved a hand and the stain vanished without a trace.

"Fake blood?" Rose repeated in a hollow voice.

"Yes," said Ethan, looking slightly to Rose's left. "It's mostly corn starch, corn syrup, cocoa powder and red colouring. Contained in a sachet I taped to my chest," He pulled a clean silk pouch from under his shirt and stowed it in his pocket.

"But – what about the knife?" Lily asked.

"I only pretended to pull it out of my chest," said Ethan. "I palmed – I mean, took the knife in my hand just before Crawford attacked me,"

McGonagall Apparated back into the room.

"It is done. I have given Crawford a new memory that removes Mr. Kleaner's, Ms. Potter's and Ms. Weasley's involvement, and creates a smoother transition to you knocking him unconscious. At long as he doesn't question that memory too deeply, he won't be able to access his true memories,"

"That's still risky – you can't erase the true memory?" asked Ethan.

" _Confundo_ can replace a recent memory without leaving an enchantment behind, but it cannot erase it. I'm afraid I don't have the mental magic expertise for that, and neither does anyone else at Hogwarts,"

For a moment, Rose thought, or hoped, that she had misheard or misunderstood the situation. Because if her ears were correct, the Headmistress had just admitted to casting the Confundus Charm – a mental magic spell – an illegal spell – on another person.

Ethan groaned. "Damn it…so your spell wasn't detected? That means…the Room can turn into a blind zone?"

"That is correct. Not through a magic-resistant lining, but by channelling a great deal of magical energy around it in a rapid flux,"

Again, Rose couldn't believe her ears. Possessing a room with blind zone capability was illegal without Ministry authorization.

"Utterly fascinating," Ethan said sarcastically. "Where is Crawford now?"

"He is in the hospital wing, unconscious. He should wake in approximately twenty minutes,"

"I'll speak to him when he wakes up. No one else. This is solely between me and him, understand?" Ethan stared sharply at McGonagall.

McGonagall regarded Ethan solemnly. "Very well, Ethan. I am in your debt. And I am sorry to have brought this burden on you,"

"Yeah, whatever," Ethan took a fleeting glance towards Lily and Rose. "I'll be going now," He turned his way towards the door.

McGonagall held up a palm to stop him. "Hold please, Mr. Chen. I believe we still owe an explanation to Ms. Potter and Ms. Weasley,"

Ethan let out a quiet grumble. "Fine," He turned to Lily and Rose.

"Ms. Potter, Ms. Weasley," said McGonagall. "Do you mind dispelling your Disillusionment Charms?"

"…Oh," Still in a daze, Rose waved her wand and she and Lily became visible again. They traded a look at each other, sharing their mutual bewilderment.

"What's going on?" asked Lily.

Ethan took in a deep breath before speaking. "What happened is that I led Crawford into this room, provoked him into attacking me, then made him think that he conjured a knife inside my chest using the Room of Requirement's powers,"

Lily stared blankly. "Room of Requirement? What is that?"

McGonagall answered. "A powerful room at Hogwarts, created by the founders. The first person to enter the room while it is empty is able to shape it to their needs, as well conjure any object within it that is conjure-able by a spell,"

McGonagall's matter-of-fact explanation helped Rose to return to her senses. "But the knife was just a trick…" She murmured.

"Yes," said Ethan. "Which means that this isn't the Room of Requirement. Just a room I had Kleaner set up for me. Kleaner also moved the real Room of Requirement elsewhere without telling Crawford. If Crawford had opened the real Room of Requirement, he would be the host, which would actually be dangerous for me. I acquired some Crystal Lightning from Professor Thomas to defend myself, though it would've been best for the plan to lay down bleeding to death while Crawford ran away. Kleaner stayed around, invisible, to protect me in case things got truly ugly. As it turns out, he protected the two of you,"

Kleaner bowed deeply to Lily and Rose.

"Mrs. Weasley's daughter, Mr. Potter's daughter, it is Kleaner's pleasure to help the missus-es,"

"Mr. Kleaner is currently Mr. Chen's personal assistant," revealed McGonagall.

"Now that I am a professor, I qualify for a house-elf personal assistant. Kleaner also protects me. From people like O'Neill. Better late than never,"

"Mr. Kleaner volunteered to serve Mr. Chen, while continuing his duties as Caretaker,"

"It is no trouble to Kleaner, Headmistress. Kleaner's Caretaker duties is hardly able to pass the time,"

"So…what happens now?" asked Lily, looking to Ethan.

Ethan took a moment before answering.

"I will speak to Crawford again at the hospital wing, and let him know that he has just committed an attempted manslaughter. If he doesn't resign from Hogwarts, I will take his crime to the police, and he will go to prison,"

"…Oh my god," Lily gasped.

Somehow, this development did not shock Rose as much it should have – it was the evident conclusion to the plan Ethan had revealed. But the immense gravity what it meant was only starting to grow on her.

"But…Crawford only attacked because…"

"Because I provoked him, yes," Ethan finished for her. "But provocation is only a mitigating defence. Crawford will still face prison time if found guilty. Of course, I won't actually report this crime to anyone. And Crawford won't dare bring the incident to the police himself. He thinks Ministry Intelligence and Cadogan himself are on my side. Even if he did suspect that he's innocent, he won't risk going to court just to continue his stupid fight for this school. He will resign,"

Provocation, frame-up, and blackmail. Hearing rumours about someone was one thing, but witnessing that person's actions first-hand…the truth finally hit Rose with the full force of reality. Ethan truly was a criminal – he was capable of committing crime, and not afraid to admit it.

"So…why are the two of you here?" Ethan asked.

"We…we were at the library…" said Lily meekly. "And we just saw you and Crawford…so we followed you,"

Ethan stared at the floor and sighed deeply.

"You shouldn't have done that. I told you not to…if Crawford accesses his true memory and recognizes your voice…you could be in serious danger,"

He turned to McGonagall. "Maybe we should find someone who can permanently erase Crawford's memory,"

McGonagall responded delicately. "I understand your concern, but I don't believe it will be necessary. As you said, Mr. Chen; even if Crawford suspects foul play, he will not find the truth worth pursuing. I believe he knows now that he is beaten,"

Ethan made no retort, but did not appear convinced. He glanced at his wristwatch. "I think I'll wake Crawford up. It's about time for me to close this out," On his way to the door, he stopped to pick up the knife he had dropped. As he closed the door behind him, Kleaner bowed to everyone.

"Kleaner wishes good night, Headmistress. And missus-es," Without lifting his head, Kleaner vanished as well.

McGonagall stared off in silence for several moments, contemplating the cleaning supplies around the room.

"I had Mr. Chen tell me of his plan before carrying it out. He would have carried it out regardless of my knowledge or permission…" She spoke without facing Lily and Rose. "But I allowed him to do it,"

McGonagall breathed a weary, silent sigh and spoke again.

"To think that dispatching one's foes was so simple…if one were just prepared to do their worst from the beginning. Is it desperation to do your worst only at the end, or to take half-measures until you have no choice?"

McGonagall turned her pensive gaze down to them. "I do hope you understand that this is a most sensitive matter; you cannot repeat details of this incident to anyone, not even your closest friends or family. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Headmistress," said Rose. Lily replied the same.

"Very good. I bid you good evening then," McGonagall twirled on a spot and vanished in a whirl of cloak.


	16. Chapter 16 - The Cabal

Chapter 16 – The Cabal

"This…this is insane," said Cadogan, holding up his temple in his fingers.

In a conference room secured against spying magic, Harry sat to the left of Cadogan and across from Aminta Fane. He had just imparted to them everything he had learnt in the last week. Specifically, about the brainwashed Obliviators who, a year ago, lured Harry, Cadogan, and Fane into dungeon torture chambers and dominated them into writing Blood-Sigiled letters, which were then used to frame the Ministry with the domination-suicide of the Muggle Prime Minister and three of his aides, as well as implicate the Ministry in a wizard supremacist plot to conquer the Muggle world by manipulating countries to weaken each other in a new world war.

"But…Blood-Sigiled letters…" Fane muttered incredulously. "I never heard about the letters being Blood-Sigiled…if we'd known that –"

"We'd know we had been compromised a lot sooner," finished Harry. He relayed what he knew in a matter-of-fact tone. "It was MI7 who told us about the letters – and they informed us through a portrait-carried message to the Muggle Liaison Office. I've questioned the three officers responsible for receiving that message – they showed signs of brainwashing similar to the Obliviators. Converted into supremacists, they removed all reference to the letters being Blood-Sigiled before handing the information to the rest of the Ministry,"

"Goodness," breathed Fane.

If anyone outside the MLO had just had direct communications with the British government, like through a telephone, there was no way they could have missed that information. Early in the war, Harry remembered Cadogan asking for a direct line, but they couldn't establish one without severely risking infiltration of the Ministry's computer network…at least according to Lowther. It was only after the Intelligence Office had learnt enough about network security that they allowed a non-magical line to the Muggles through Hermione. Whoever planned the lapse of information likely only intended it to last long enough for the war to gain its own momentum. But it lasted so much longer because they were afraid of being compromised; the irony was staggering.

"Three more brainwashed? Damn it," Cadogan grumbled under his breath. "Should have taken those rooms down long ago. I'll have the adamantine scrapped immediately. I won't risk any more people getting dominated inside the Ministry,"

"We will have to do it secretly," said Harry. "And replace the adamantine plates with a lookalike. We can't alert whoever's behind this that we're on their trail,"

"Have you found evidence of anyone else being compromised?" asked Fane.

"I've checked through the dungeon's security recordings and haven't found anyone else compromised through the dungeon blind zones. But there are other ways to dominate someone undetected, so there's no telling how far we've been infiltrated,"

Fane hung her head as if under a dizzy spell. Cadogan leant on his elbow over the table, brooding.

"You should check your Pensieves for irregularities when you return home," Harry told them. "To see if your memories have been altered,"

"The Obliviators only used the Imperius and the Memory-Wipe Spell on us, right?" asked Cadogan.

"Yes," According to what the Obliviators told Harry, they did not alter any of their past memories, a record of which should be stored in their Pensieves if they updated it regularly. However, it did not hurt to check.

"I have the Obliviators and liaison officers sitting in the next room," Harry indicated to a door behind him. "You can question them yourselves if you want,"

"Hm. I will do that. Later," said Cadogan gruffly. "For now…who are the main suspects?"

Harry shook his head. "…I honestly don't know. It has to be an organization with a skilled memory fixer. Besides our Ministry, they may have also framed other Ministries with dominating their respective Muggle governments,"

"You mentioned that the Obliviators met with Acton Rutledge," said Fane. "But that may have just been a disguise,"

"Right,"

"Potter…" Cadogan began slowly. "The Muggles' global intelligence network claimed they found evidence that implicated almost _every_ Minister for Magic in America, Europe and Asia, _and_ most of their top cabinet members. They claimed that the entire International Confederation of Wizards was supremacist. We don't know what kind of evidence the other countermagic agencies have – it may not be as irrefutable as Blood-Sigiled letters. But you realize that if what you're saying is true…that means there's some organization out there that has infiltrated practically every Ministry in the world, and may have completely dominated some of them. If I were the Muggles, I'd rather believe that the entire Confederation _was_ supremacist,"

"I know. And we have to convince them otherwise," said Harry.

Cadogan brooded deeply. "I don't think the Knights have that kind of reach. The Cabal maybe, but they've never been interested in wizard supremacy,"

"Could it be a foreign supremacist group?" speculated Fane. "Or perhaps they're all working in concert?"

Harry had already worked through the thoughts they were currently having. "The supremacist movement has gained more attention in recent years, but all the groups have been regionally-minded. The Knights have made contact with their counterparts in the Americas and Europe, but we've never had evidence to suggest that they've coordinated anything, let alone something like this,"

"Should we inform the Confederation about this?" said Fane.

"No. Not yet," said Harry.

Fane looked aghast at him. "You can't be serious. The other Ministries could be infiltrated as much as ours. We have to inform them,"

"I only want a little more time to investigate without this organization knowing I'm on their trail," Harry replied firmly. "I'm sure they'll discover me eventually, and then we can inform the other Ministries in the Confederation,"

"Hmm, Potter's right," said Cadogan. "We say nothing for now," He fixed Fane with a stern glare, then turned to Harry. "You said the Cabal lent the Obliviators mithril cloaks. That's your current lead?"

"Yes. After this, I'll be looking for a den where I can find Cabal artefact lenders and memfixers,"

"Very well," Cadogan leant back in his chair, calming down slightly. "So have you told MI7 about the evidence you've collected?"

"You told _them_ before us?" exclaimed Fane.

"You were both at a meeting," Harry replied. "MI7…" His voice turned grave. "…they want the Obliviators and liaison officers. They want to verify the evidence themselves,"

Cadogan and Fane silently reared back.

"…I see. And how are we supposed to hand them over?" spoke Cadogan.

"Minister," breathed Fane. "If we were to do that, we're basically handing over six Ministry officers to MI7. Six people who are only victims of brainwashing. What if MI7 breaks their minds for information? If it gets out that we allowed that –"

"We can't afford not to take this path," Cadogan stated with finality. "We must present the evidence to the Muggles. Potter?" He stared over at him.

Harry let out a deep breath. "Cadogan is right,"

It was an awful, terrible decision, but it was the best chance they ever had to prove their innocence of the crimes that started the war. Harry would later remove the contract bindings he placed on the brainwashed officers, but some of them still had the contract bindings they placed on themselves. The bindings were weak enough that MI7 should be able to extract information with just the electroshock method, but they may still resort to cold iron spikes and other permanently damaging options.

"As for how to transfer them…MI7 will give a location in Muggle territory, which will have agents waiting. We will have one brainwashed officer Apparate to that location and have MI7 retrieve him. MI7 will then transmit the next location, where we send the next officer, until all officers are handed over,"

"I see," said Cadogan. "That will require removing Oculus detection from those areas, so police don't drop in when they detect suspicious Apparition. Fane, get me the authorization codes for Central Console override of the scrying eyes network. As soon as possible,"

"Yes, Minister,"

Cadogan held his stare at Fane.

"That means right now,"

"Ah. Yes. Right away," Fane stood up and left the room, a great air of worry hanging over her.

The two Head Aurors sat silently for several moments. Harry waited for Cadogan to collect his thoughts and ask more questions if necessary. Cadogan gazed distantly at the long table; eventually he spoke soberly.

"A couple years ago, Divination Analysis said that we were on the brink of a crossroads; 'a clash of legends', they said, that will decide the fate of humanity. Every other prediction they make is about some bloody crossroad, but this is it. All the monsters in the dark are coming out of hiding, their schemes finally ripe for action. I hope our generation has what it takes to face these monsters,"

Cadogan looked up at Harry.

"About the boy – Ethan Chen,"

Harry knew he would bring this up eventually. "Yes?"

"I don't appreciate you going behind my back. If you wanted to take him to Weasley, you should have asked," Cadogan did not sound mad, only displeased.

"I might have asked for your permission, but Lowther would have killed him by the time I came back,"

"For good reason. He is a security risk. You're able to see the big picture in every other issue. You know what the right choice is here,"

Pragmatically, Harry saw Cadogan's point. But something – maybe just a prideful refusal to reverse a previous decision – prevented him from believing it. There had to be more than just the covers of Lowther's Spooks locked in Ethan's mind, and Harry would not allow that to be lost, even if it risked Ministry lives. If that was a mistake…he was prepared for the consequences.

"No. I won't give him back,"

Cadogan's expression remained still. "Then he's not leaving Hogwarts either."

Cadogan glanced over at the door behind Harry, where the brainwashed officers were sitting quietly. Harry supposed Cadogan will be questioning them for a bit, before arranging the transfers with Fane and MI7.

"Carry on your investigation, Potter. The entire world is counting on you,"

* * *

It was inevitable that a prospering city will develop a seedy underworld. For Caelorum, it was in the fringe alleys of the Nimbus borough, where it was often dark from being in the shadow of the mainland mountain. Many stores offering black market goods and services were available here, but some were protected by concealment charms, requiring an invitation to gain access.

"I'm losing my patience," holding the man by a fistful of his shirt, Harry rammed him again against an alley wall. The back of the man's head bounced off the unwashed brick and the underside of his jaw pressed deeper into the Elder Wand.

"Alright, alright! It's 19 Morgan Street," croaked the man.

Now that the Secret Keeper had voluntarily given Harry the address of a location, he should be able to perceive it. Harry Stunned the man and proceeded down several blocks.

The level of brainwashing that the Obliviators and liaison officers went through required a serious amount of time, even for veteran memfixers; at least a week of complex rewriting sessions, not to mention testing the victims to confirm the brainwashing's success. The only time the Ministry officers could be absent for so long without it being noticed was during their annual leave. Checking the Floo Network Authority's records, all of the brainwashed officers Flooed to the U.S. during their annual leave.

Supposedly, that was when they met Rutledge, but Harry wanted to find out if it was the Cabal who brainwashed them. Harry also wanted to check on the Obliviators' claim that they borrowed mithril cloaks from the Cabal. After reviewing the intelligence gathered in the past by his Organized Crime Division, Harry found one Cabal den that served a decent chance of him finding out both.

Before turning a corner into Morgan Street, Harry glanced down at his Foe-Watch and saw a red dot at the ten o'clock position. There was a lookout on a balcony – Harry Stunned the man before he could think of an appropriate reaction. Harry strode quickly down the street and flipped a switch on his Anti-Warp Field Projector: an intricate brass bauble within the backmost pouch of his belt. It projected a magical field in a radius of fifty yards to stop the Cabal members from escaping by Apparition, Portkey, Floo or any other teleportation magic.

Harry stopped before a flashy club entrance with the name 'Unbound Desire' on a glowing animated sign. A magical barrier shone like a panel of glass over the entire building. Harry cast the Haste Charm on himself, steadied his nerves for battle, then tossed a Vanish Bomb at the door.

The Vanish Bomb carved a perfect hole out of the entrance and Harry leapt in the second-long window before the magical barrier reformed. The brothel was full of patrons and dominated Muggle prostitutes – the Muggles stood stunned as the patrons clambered for cover behind their lounge seats. The place was an enormous gothic-style lounge of opulent red and gold tones, like a royal ballroom; it was as large as one as well, despite the exterior of the building looking only like a narrow terrace house.

Harry's Foe-Watch grew hot and bloomed with red lights; five Cabal enforcers spilled out from doors all around the room.

"Oi!" cried out one of the enforcers on a balcony. "Where's your warr–"

Harry blasted him against the wall with a bolt of lightning. Immediately, Harry dashed forward, ducking under a slew of enemy spells, and turned invisible via his Invisibility Cloak. Chaos rampaged over the room – tables exploded into splinters, bottles turned into rabid bats, bar stools grew teeth and charged him like attack dogs. He blew the attacking objects to pieces with the Reductor Curse; at the same time he weaved through a rain of spells at Hasted speed and returned fire with bolts of lightning.

Two enforcers cast Disillusionment Charms on themselves, but that didn't matter – Harry's glasses were enchanted to see through them. Unfortunately they weren't able to do the same through his Invisibility Cloak. He punished them both with a bolt of lightning for leaving themselves open. One enforcer grabbed a Muggle girl from behind to use as a shield. The girl only wore a vacant expression as the enforcer dragged her in front of him. Harry blasted him sideways with a Knockdown Jinx and electrified him to unconsciousness. Another enforcer knew how to counterspell _Fulgetrium_ , so Harry switched to _Aerignes_ – he launched a barrage of bright blue plasma bolts against the enforcer's Barrier. Once shattered, the bolts threw the enforcer against the wall with his clothes and surrounding furniture set on fire.

After dispatching the last enforcer, Harry turned visible and checked his Foe-Watch; there were three Cabal men left in a far-end room on the second floor, likely the men in charge he was looking for. He strode through a field of debris and climbed the half-broken stairs, ignoring the brothel patrons who cowered behind furniture as he passed.

The dominated Muggles watched him with mixed expressions; some strained against _Imperio_ , others regarded him with only dull interest. As much as Harry wanted to help them, there was nothing he could do. He could lead them to a homeless shelter, but they were all bound by magic contract to return to the Cabal. Restraining them would only grant them an agonizing death.

With the battle over, Harry could focus enough on his mana sense to recognize that the building had its own Anti-Warp Field. His own AWF Projector exempted him from its effects, but the Cabal's field prevented him from Disapparating from the area. He would not be able to identify the Cabal men he needed to question and escape in time with them; Cabal reinforcements were likely already on their way. The best he could do was question who he could as fast as possible and fight his way out.

Harry travelled down a hallway and stopped several feet from the room where the remaining Cabal men were holed up. Not a good tactical decision in Harry's opinion; he flourished his wand and gathered mana within it for a charged spell.

" _Fulgetrium Sphera,"_

A crackling ball of lightning grew from the tip of the Elder Wand, expanding to the size of a basketball. With his free hand, Harry tossed a Vanish Bomb at the door, annihilating it as well as all the defensive charms and traps the Cabal men placed for him. He immediately followed by firing the lightning ball – it soared into the room and exploded, bathing its small area with bouncing chains of lightning. Three bodies thudded on the floor inside.

Harry stepped into the thrashed room which appeared to be an office. The three Cabal men lay twitching upon the floor, their hands reaching for their wands which had dropped away from them. Harry summoned their wands up to him, snapped them in half, and tossed them aside. He then levitated the nearest man upright and threw him against the wall.

"There's a memfixer and a lender here. Which are you?"

The man slumped to the floor and jerked his chin at the other two. "It's them. I'm just the manager here,"

The paralysis induced by Harry's magic lightning had worn off enough for the Cabal men to speak. He TK'd the other two to the wall next to the brothel manager so he could have them all in the front of his view. Unlike the Cabal enforcers who wore casual robes, the three men displayed their higher rank by wearing suit robes.

"I want to know if the Cabal lent any mithril cloaks within two weeks before June 13th last year," said Harry, keeping his wand raised at them. Two weeks was the maximum period anyone could borrow a mithril cloak from the Cabal, and June 13th was the earliest date that the Obliviators handed Blood-sigiled letters to the MI7 agents.

The men sat speechless at his question, which did not suit Harry. "Fine. Veritaserum then," He reached for a pouch on his potion belt.

"Wait –"

With _Telekinesis_ , Harry pulled the one who cried out forward and levitated a dropper bottle of clear liquid over his pried-open mouth. He dripped three drops of Veritaserum into his mouth and sent him back to the wall.

"Did the Cabal lend any mithril cloaks within two weeks before June 13th last year?" Harry asked again.

The Cabal man's expression turned placid and his eyes glazed over. "Yes. To three men. It was at night on the 3rd of June," He said in a voice void of emotion. The other two looked on fearfully.

Harry reached into the man's mind with Legilimency. He was the lender; his mind was like a still pond, unperturbed by any thought and thus easier to see through. It confirmed for Harry that the truth serum was successful and not being resisted.

"We had the clients screened for enchantments before borrowing the cloaks. They were wearing Polyjuice disguises and bound with secrecy contracts. Our memfixer also recognized that they exhibited signs of being brainwashed,"

"And you still lent them the cloaks?" said Harry.

"Yes," replied the lender, his face making only the minimal movement needed for speaking. "The enchantment screening is mainly a safety precaution and to detect surveillance charms; we do not mind if our clients come in disguised. We reported what happened and our boss ordered people to track them. We don't know what happened after,"

So the Cabal were not the ones responsible for brainwashing the Obliviators, at least according to this lender. June 3rd was also after all three Obliviators had returned from their leave to the United States.

Harry turned the Elder Wand onto the memfixer.

"It's all true," He sputtered frantically. "It's got nothing to do with us – we got no reason to hide anything,"

"Could those men have been brainwashed by another Cabal memfixer? From the U.S.?"

"U.S.? I dunno about that," the memfixer shook his head.

"It is possible, but unlikely," stated the lender. "Our memfixer was called by the boss herself to hand his memory of what happened to her. He told us afterward that our boss appeared very concerned about it,"

"Yes. That happened," corroborated the memfixer. "The boss has a really tight leash on all her memfixers. We're contracted not to perform any memory job without her permission,"

Harry's Foe-Watch turned biting hot – about ten dots blinked up at the bottom of the mirror, with one dot fast approaching the centre. Harry whirled around and leapt out of the way as a blur of red and black flew past him and punched a hole in the wall, over the heads of the terrified Cabal men.

Harry fired lightning at her, pouring all the mana he had – she met it with an outstretched palm. As lightning coursed through her body, she rushed forward like it was nothing and grabbed his wrist. In an instant, she twisted his wand arm, turned, and threw him to the ground over her shoulder. The force of the throw broke the tiled floor, dislocated his shoulder, and shattered his full-capacity Barrier. The Sticking Charm Harry placed on the Elder Wand didn't matter – she ripped it out of his grasp along with the skin of his palm. She planted a high-heeled foot on his chest to pin him; it was as immovable as a mountain.

"It's nice to see you again, Harry," said Mina Murray, leader of the global criminal syndicate Cabala ex Sacramentum Sanguinis.

Looking out of the office room, Harry saw several Cabal men filling up the hallway.

"Reimburse the customers and take everyone downstairs," Murray spoke in her rich, breathy drawl. "And leave us, please,"

The Cabal men began pulling patrons and Muggle girls out of various rooms and corralling them down the hallway. The memfixer, lender and brothel manager picked themselves up and slinked away with the rest of the Cabal men.

"Let's chat, Harry,"

Swinging him by his hand, Murray threw him to the wall and pinned him with a foot to his gut. She unbuckled his potion belt and removed it – the moment she did, the belt's theft protection charm detonated the Crystal Lightnings stored in the belt, one after another. Harry felt a jolt rip through his body before Murray's foot lowered and she stepped back. However, she simply held on to the belt, absorbing millions of volts of electricity until the belt's store of Crystal Lightning was depleted.

"Ooh, that tingled," Murray cooed as she held the leather belt up and admired it. "So this is the legendary potion belt of Harry Potter,"

Harry pushed himself up against the wall, but did nothing more. He had his personal wand in his left ankle, but knew he stood no chance of getting through Murray, let alone all the Cabal men she brought with her. Behind her, Harry noted that the upper floor had just been vacated.

"Hmm, it actually doesn't look half-bad," Murray put on the belt. "Pouches are streamlined, flush with the strap; and full-grain Boomslang leather – tough, flexible _and_ beautiful, but it must have been difficult getting the Extension Charms to stick,"

Murray wore a dark cape blazer – it resembled a waistcoat with square shoulders and a short cape – over a white blouse and suit pants. She swayed her hips and tossed her long crimson hair. "How do I look?" she asked coyly.

When the three Cabal men were holed in this office, they must have been the ones who called for reinforcements, thought Harry. His active Anti-Warp Field Projector meant the Cabal couldn't warp in inside the building; they had to approach from fifty yards off. The Ministry should have detected their mass Apparition and sent Aurors to investigate. The fact that Aurors weren't currently bursting into the building and that Murray was fine with them staying here would therefore suggest that his Aurors and the Cabal were currently locked in a hostage situation, with the patrons, the dominated Muggles and himself as the hostages.

Once the Ministry's advanced localized detection magics had accurately sized the strength of the Cabal forces and gathered all other important intelligence, the Auror Organized Crime Division would undoubtedly begin their assault. In the meantime, the best thing Harry could do was gather as much information as he could from Murray.

"On June 3rd last year, three men borrowed mithril cloaks from one of your lenders," said Harry. "What do you know about them?"

Murray gave him a smouldering look. "You have to answer my question first –"

"Horrible," Harry replied immediately.

Murray smiled and sashayed close to him; close enough for Harry to see the soft glowing filaments of her amber eyes. Although close to a hundred and fifty in age, she still appeared in the prime of her twenties. A hand shot up and gripped over his temple.

"So what brings you here?"

Harry felt something akin to tendrils feeling along the edge of his brain. They attempted to burrow in, but Harry repelled them with Occlumency. Murray pushed with her full might, but even her highly matured mental powers couldn't lift a thought from him.

"Ah, you're a really strong Occlumens…especially considering mental magic's not even your specialty," She lowered her hand from his temple. "So, where is third Deathly Hallow?"

Harry said nothing.

"Hmm, do you want me to search you for it?"

"You can't reach it anyway," he said.

"You Apparated it inside you? I see," Murray stepped back and searched around his potion belt. She pulled out his Revealens and scanned his body.

"Ah, I see it. Just behind your sternum. I could pull that right out –" She glanced at her trimmed unpainted nails. "– but I'm pretty hard to kill already, so it's not worth the mess,"

She returned the Revealens to its pouch. It neatly fit inside despite being longer than the pouch; all of his potion belt's pouches were enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm, which expanded the space within.

"Be a dear and hand over your other wand, would you?"

Harry pulled out his personal wand and tossed it to Murray. She held them up side-by-side to compare them. The Elder Wand was longer, at fifteen inches, heavily knobbed, and light ashen brown. The wand that Harry had used since he was a boy was eleven inches, smooth, and a shade darker.

"Doesn't owning two wands weaken your magic by half?" Murray asked rhetorically. "Since your mana pool is bonded to two channels? That's why most wizards only carry one. But I suppose the Elder Wand more than makes up for that. I admit I don't know much about wands, since I'm a Muggle," Murray examined both wands closely. "But I think I like yours better. It's more…you, somehow,"

She lowered them to stare at Harry instead. "Your Aurors had this place surrounded pretty quickly. Does this mean I've fallen completely into your trap?"

"No, they just do that," replied Harry. They must have already found the Secret Keeper Harry left behind, if they were able to identify the building. "I didn't expect you to show up yourself,"

"Well it's been so long and so much has happened; I thought we should catch up," said Murray smoothly. She sat in a nearby chair and crossed her legs. She placed the Elder Wand on her lap while twirling his wand between her fingers.

Harry went to a chair in a corner and sat down as well, before pushing his dislodged shoulder joint back in place. His position was the furthest he could sit from Murray, who was in the middle of the room. His distance from her will be important when he eventually made his move to escape.

"One of your lenders lent three men mithril cloaks," began Harry.

"Yes; we offer our services to anyone who asks, and we don't pry as to their purposes," said Murray in a servicing manner.

"They were brainwashed, most likely in the United States. Did your memfixers in the U.S. have anything to do with that?" Harry scrutinized Murray intently for signs of deception, though he knew he was very unlikely to catch any. Her composure and self-control was something hardened by over a century of experience.

"If they did, I wouldn't just tell you, now would I?" replied Murray airily, slowly rolling his wand between her fingertips.

"I heard you became quite concerned and ordered men to track them," said Harry.

"Yes, and they found absolutely nothing," Murray groaned. "Sure, the clients were disguised, but there were trails to follow. At most, I believe their lumbering search scared the brainwasher out of Britain,"

And once the TAFC went down, the brainwashed officers could only stand by with no new orders to fulfil. They couldn't be 'scrubbed' either – wiped of evidence when they were no longer useful – allowing Harry to discover them.

"Why did you have them followed?" asked Harry.

"Why do you think? When people are disguised _and_ brainwashed, it's rarely for small reason,"

"You knew that they were brainwashed, but you didn't tell us about it," Harry tried to keep his voice neutral, but a hint of accusation seeped through – as if he expected better from the leader of the largest magic criminal syndicate in the world.

"Same reason you haven't told the rest of the world," said Murray. "I wanted to find out who was responsible,"

"And have you?"

Murray smiled weakly. "No. Whoever is orchestrating all this, he's good. And extremely dangerous,"

"'He'?" echoed Harry. "It could be a woman. Or a group sharing leadership,"

Murray shook her head. "I know something about mad schemes to plunge the world into chaos. It's one man at the top, definitely. You remember what happened last June?"

On June 6th of last year, three days after the Obliviators acquired their mithril cloaks, they dominated Harry, followed on later days by Fane and Cadogan. On June 13th, MI7 revealed the first of the fake Ministry letters they intercepted to the Confederation, which wholeheartedly denied its contents. Three days after that on June 16th, the Cabal began to sell Occlumency Charms. Harry's and Lowther's men raided the Cabal's warehouses for the Charms and turned over the schematics they found to the Confederation. Without Confederation approval, some Ministries began production of their own Charms and selling them to Muggle governments. Then Muggle governments identified a design in the Charms that allowed them to potentially become remote mind-altering artefacts. Thus the war started.

"Yes," replied Harry. "It was a bad month,"

"Not as bad as the July after. Clashes in Africa over the first week, the Revelation the week after that, then our Muggle Prime Minister kills himself on live television, pointing the finger at the Ministry with his dying breath," Murray made a quiet sigh at the recollection. "I believe you and Lowther have been interrogating some of my men, asking if we had anything to do with that madness. Hopefully now you can spare them and yourselves the trouble of asking fruitless questions,"

Harry would not be telling his Aurors to stop questioning Cabal members about the Prime Minister's domination-suicide. After all, there was the possibility that Murray _was_ responsible for it and was trying to lead him astray.

"But you did sell the Charms," Harry said.

"We've told your people before; the charms were not intended as a ploy. They were intended to work as advertised, and no more,"

Harry had learnt that himself from the Unspeakables' examination of the Charms. The alterations made only added a switch to reverse the flow of the Charm's mana circuits; it caused the Charm to emit a raw mental magic energy that, at best, would only weaken the wearer's resistance to mental magic.

"One of my men altered the schematics before handing it to the factories. Unfortunately, I never found any evidence for it – the man overdosed himself on Euphoria Elixir a few days after,"

Harry remembered when Lowther reported that intelligence to the cabinet a year ago. Harry's conclusion at the time was that the Knights of Walpurgis had the Cabal's schematics altered to scare the Muggle governments from using them.

"Do you see what happened? The Occlumency Charms were a threat to someone's plan and his sprawling infiltration of Ministries and Muggle governments, so this someone used all of us to just make his plan _better_. The Muggles don't dare to use any version of the Charms now, and it added more damning evidence of a Confederation plot to dominate Muggle leaders,"

"Yes, I do see," said Harry.

Murray smiled. "Good. Now I'll give you something new," She leant forward on her crossed legs. "You probably think that the Knights of Walpurgis are the ones most likely behind all this brainwash warfare. Let me tell you one reason why that might not be right,"

Harry had a bad premonition of what he was about to hear.

"The man who sold me the schematic of the Occlumency Charm was the leader of the Knights,"

As Harry feared, the worst possibility had now risen to the most probable – there was a new foe out there, one which they knew _nothing_ about.

" _The leader of the Knights_ invented the Occlumency Charm?" Harry muttered half-stunned. "That makes no sense," For what reason would the leader of a wizard supremacist group invent an artefact that astronomically improved the ability of Muggles to protect themselves from mental magic?

"I know," concurred Murray. "He maybe not invented the Charm by himself, but he was well-informed on how it worked. He initially taught that _we_ screwed him over by altering the design. He told me specifically that he wanted the Charms sold to important Muggle officials all over the world. The timing he chose is of course too close to be a coincidence; he was trying to throw a wrench in our hidden schemer's agenda,"

Harry tried to fit the information he knew into a scenario that made sense – to no avail. They had gone far beyond the realm of commonly imaginable scenarios.

"Who is the leader of the Knights?" Harry asked.

Murray shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know. He keeps his face hidden under a magically-shaded hood. When he came to me, he wanted to keep his identity a secret entirely, but I attacked him and that gave me enough information to tell that he was the leader of the Knights. He bade me not to inform the Ministry or the Knights that he invented the Charms; I'm guessing that his Knights wouldn't like to learn that. So far I've kept his secret as a piece of leverage against him, but the way this war is currently going, I'm willing to hand that leverage to you,"

Murray leant back into her chair. "I would like to know who the leader of the Knights is, as well as this schemer in the dark. War is good for business, but if things get too out of hand, even I have to put my foot down,"

"So you want me to help you find out," said Harry. It was the reason she came to see him, and the reason they were currently chatting while their men were staring each other down outside the building.

"I know you won't let me down, Harry," Murray gave him a teasing smile with a tilt of her head. She then straightened in her seat. "Well, now that I've given you some juicy information, it's your turn to give me something, namely what you've found out so far in your investigation. First off: who exactly _were_ those men, and what mission were they brainwashed for?"

Harry went from spinning in a vortex of mystery to standing on thin ice. Murray expected his information in return for hers, but what he had he could not give her. If he told her of the Ministry being infiltrated, that three of its top cabinet members had been compromised…he shuddered to think of what could follow. Just the word getting out to the public would be catastrophic – people would panic, call for resignations, and lose all faith in the Ministry…

"Sorry. I can't tell you that,"

Murray pulled the smallest frown and idly played with Harry's wand, exchanging it between each hand.

"I can't say I didn't expect this, but I'd hoped you would be more forthcoming with me. Any working relationship, be it business or personal, requires reciprocation, you know,"

"We don't have a working relationship," stated Harry.

"I remember a time when you said something quite different to me," Murray smiled again. "I hear from my smugglers that you're trying to book a smuggling cart to London. Are you heading there as part of your investigation? I can fix you a ride at any time, for a special price of just one piece of information,"

With that, he would be able to take Ethan back to Muggle territory, and cross one thing off his lengthy to-do list. As much as he wanted to finally right one of his past wrongs, the risk was too great for it.

"I'm sorry, Murray. I can't trust you with what I have,"

Murray rested a cheek in one palm and sighed deeply. "Harry, I hate to state the obvious, but I _can_ just use your own Veritaserum on you,"

If Murray were to do so, Harry would still be able to keep her locked out of his memories for about thirty minutes to an hour with his Occlumency. His Aurors should assault the building long before then, but if Murray managed to break through his Aurors and take Harry to a Cabal hideout…she would have all the time she needed to extract his memories and do much more.

With his mana sense, Harry could vaguely tell that both the Cabal men and his Aurors had set up Anti-Warp Fields; the Cabal to keep the Aurors from Apparating in and their hostages from escaping, and the Aurors to keep the Cabal from escaping. Both of those fields stopped Harry from escaping via Apparition, if he could even find a way to reach either of his wands.

Thus, Harry's only option was to stall for time as much as possible until his Aurors burst in. "Murray, I'm grateful for you telling me about the Occlumency Charms and the leader of the Knights,"

"Are you? Actions speak louder than words, dear," Her amber eyes narrowed at him.

"Maybe I can repay you a different way,"

"How do you propose to do that? Will you tell your Aurors to leave my men to conduct their business in peace? Will you allow us to buy up properties without investigating our accounts? Will you help me eliminate my rivals here and abroad, without proper evidence against them?"

Harry said nothing, to which Murray shook her head in disappointment.

"You've tried for fifteen years, Harry, but you can't escape me. I told you that you would need my help some day. The Cabal has, for many centuries, had a fair working relationship with the Ministry,"

"Cadogan and I put a stop to that," said Harry.

"And here you are now: trying to stall for time until your men barge in, so you won't have to sully yourself with helping the Cabal. I have some idea of what you're trying to hide, but the details of what you've learned could help me in my own investigation of who is playing us all. Is that not more important here than your sense of honour?"

Of course she knew he was stalling; Harry's prospect of escape was looking slim. But as long as he still had a chance, he wouldn't be giving up his information. "There's more at stake than my honour,"

Murray did not seem the least bit pressed for time, or concerned about the impending Auror assault.

"Tell me, Harry, when you arrested me all those years ago and gutted my British operation…did you manage to put a stop to Muggle slave trafficking? Did you even notice a marked decline?" Murray paused for an answer which Harry did not give.

"No. The business simply went to other outfits, who treated their Muggles worse because they did not have my resources. They starved, fell ill, and lived in squalor until I took them back. Most outfits are only looking for a quick profit, but _I_ run a long-term business. In the end, as long as evil exists in men's hearts, there will always be a market in what we do. Both of our jobs exists because of it. What my organization does, Harry, is bring order to this world's inevitable evils. Better the devil you know,"

Harry focused his thoughts solely on how to escape – he would not allow himself to be pulled into Murray's arguments. However, if he somehow could find an opening, he might be able to make a run for it…

"I don't take half-measures," Harry stated with iron resolution. "I didn't become an Auror to make crime manageable; I became an Auror to end it. Whether or not I succeed, I will not compromise,"

Murray gently ran her fingers down the length of his wand, smiling to herself.

"Still so stubborn and straightforward. Terrible qualities in a man who's always fighting out of his league. But that's just one thing I like about you,"

A Cabal enforcer rushed down the hallway and to the Vanished hole that used to be the office doorway.

"Madam, the Aurors are charging up a Greater Dispel – they'll jump us in a minute,"

Murray turned around to face him. "Then get ready for them. Begin charging Mass Disapparition right after Dispel hits,"

"Yes madam," the Cabal enforcer returned down the hallway.

There was Harry's chance; his potion belt was enchanted with an Owner Return Charm – he could command it to fly back to him with just a thought. Murray should have scanned his belt earlier with his Revealens so she could take measures against the enchantments that were on it. But she overlooked it in her effort to unbalance Harry with sexuality. In the end, she only unbalanced herself.

Harry stretched out his hand and mentally called his belt to him. His belt unbuckled itself and shot towards him. Without shifting her gaze at all, Murray grabbed the belt just as it escaped her hips. She didn't look the least bit surprised. The belt stretched out horizontally in her grasp, trying desperately to reach him.

Murray waited for the Cabal enforcer to return downstairs before turning back to Harry.

"You really thought I wouldn't let you go in the end? Like I said, we are both part of the system. We're working together now,"

Murray released the belt – it flew to Harry and buckled itself around him. She then tossed back both of Harry's wands, which he caught. With all the Deathly Hallows returned to him, so did his rapid regeneration; the torn muscles of his right shoulder grew warm and wove back together in a second, as did the torn-off skin of his right palm.

Murray stood up and stretched her body. "Well, that was a long chat – I'm ready for some fighting. I've ordered my men to hold back on causing any casualties, but I highly recommend you let us have a clean getaway to keep it that way,"

Harry stood up and walked towards the hallway. Just as he passed behind Murray, two arms wrapped tightly around his waist and a warm body pressed itself to his back.

Murray's whisper brushed the back of Harry's neck and tingled in his ear.

"My offer remains open, Harry. If you have any information you _are_ willing to share, you'll pay me a visit, won't you?"

Goosebumps washed up and down his skin as Harry held himself still in Murray's embrace. "…Sure. I will," he muttered stiffly.

Murray's fingers began to move, feeling across his abdomen towards his chest.

"You're the only one who makes me act this way, Harry. I'll never forget the way you infiltrated my organization all the way to my right-hand side. You made me feel something again…especially when you stabbed me in the back,"

Her fingers felt through his shirt and traced the lines of his chest. She made a sigh that electrified the hairs of his neck.

"Everyone puts so much pressure on you to do your job, and do it in the most flawless way. But one day those you protect will betray you, and leave you alone in this cruel, loveless world. When that day comes, don't be afraid to come to me. I'll take good care of you,"

Harry put his hands over Murray's and gently brushed them aside.

"You too, Mina,"

Harry swiftly strode out onto the hallway, stowing his personal wand in one sleeve. There were only seconds left until the assault; Harry thought he would provide a distraction to improve his Aurors' advantage. He reached the balcony that overlooked the front lounge, and counted over a dozen Cabal enforcers, all standing about in tense anticipation of the Auror assault. They looked up simultaneously at him.

Murray's voice carried all the way from the end of the hall to the enormous lounge. "Potter's escaping! Get him!" She commanded.

Before the Cabal men could respond, Harry threw a handful of tiny black pellets at the floor below. It was Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder – half the room became engulfed in a cloud of stark darkness. Harry leapt off the balcony and into the cloud. His enchanted glasses enabled him to see through the dark like it was a faint smoke – he saw Cabal men spin around blindly and cast _Lumos_ , but no ordinary light could penetrate the magical darkness.

Two spells flew in Harry's direction, but missed him by a few feet. Harry retaliated with lightning and downed two men. Then a torrent of spells from a dozen wands flew at Harry – spikes of ice, sprays of acid, homing beams of light and animated furniture. Enchanted with Haste, Harry dodged through most of them, but an ice spike smashed against his Barrier and sent him skidding across the polished marble floor, out of the darkness cloud.

A second wave of spells soared towards him, but then a massive shockwave, a wall of white light, washed through the lounge from the distant entrance. A deep chill filled the room; all the spells careening towards Harry vanished, the attacking furniture slumped down lifeless. Every Barrier shattered, including Harry's – all at once the shielding over their bodies flashed light blue before vanishing with a dull sizzle. The frame of his glasses felt cold – the enchantments on them were also removed. The Instant Darkness cloud vanished, and even the lighted candles around the lounge were snuffed out, tinging the room in dimness.

That was Greater Dispel, a sorcery: a spell requiring an enormous amount of mana, far more than any single wizard can wield in a wand. Undoubtedly cast by the Sorcery Division of the Auror Office. If the contents and enchantments of Harry's belt weren't protected by the magic resistance of its Boomslang leather, Greater Dispel would have rendered all his potions and artefacts inert and removed the Extension Charms of his pouches, causing them to burst open with all their contents. Still, both Harry's and the Cabal's Anti-Warp Field Projectors were disabled – now came the part where the Organized Crime Division Apparated in.

A ball of light materialized in the centre of the lounge, then exploded. A blinding light burst over the room, bright enough to warm the back of Harry's head. Harry didn't look directly at the Thunderflash Spell, but he was still blinded by the light reflected off the marble floor. A shockwave of air popped his ear drums and rattled his brain; if he wasn't already on the ground he would have fallen over in thorough nausea.

The Hallows' regenerative powers helped his senses recover faster than normal. In a couple of seconds, the pure white of his vision and the ringing in his ears began to fade. He faintly heard the whistle of flying spells, the crash of bodies hitting furniture, fiery explosions, and other sounds of general chaos.

"Uncle H – I mean, sir! Are you okay?" Harry heard a voice that sounded as if from the end of a long tunnel.

"Argh…I'm fine, Teddy," Harry groaned to his godson.

Teddy helped Harry up to his feet. His senses recovered, he beheld the ruinous battlefield; half of the Cabal men lay knocked out while the other half were retreating from the lounge to an adjacent bar and striptease area. The Aurors had, of course, engaged with a huge advantage; they Apparated in with a decent estimate of the number and position of combatants, they engaged with full Barriers against stunned and Barrier-stripped combatants, and they were the best-trained fighters of the Ministry.

Suddenly a loud rumble of cracking concrete reverberated from the walls – then, like a stretched rubber band snapping back, the lounge shrank. The walls closed in, cutting the lounge's size in half. Everything and everyone was thrown towards the centre – Harry slammed into a table in front of him right before another table slammed into his back. A load of debris and some Aurors piled up at the centre of the lounge. The ceiling lurched down and great ominous cracks began to trail down the plastered walls.

"Oh, finally," remarked Teddy, standing from under a heap of broken wood. "Sorcery guys said the building would collapse. I was beginning to doubt them,"

It appeared that the Sorcery Division's Greater Dispel had also severely weakened the Extension Charm cast over the front lounge. Harry had seen similar scenarios before; the skewed spatial geometry of the building was slowly wrenching the upper floor's walls apart. The whole building would fall into a heap in no longer than three minutes.

Another Auror, a short and broad-chested man, staggered up to Teddy and Harry.

"Sir – are you alright?" asked Jimmy Peakes, chief of the Auror Organized Crime Division.

Harry pushed out of the tables sandwiching him. "Fine, Jim,"

Peakes tapped twice beside his own ear – activating a two-way Listening Charm that was likely linked to all Aurors in the area.

"All units, this is Aries alpha – we have Ophis," announced Peakes.

Harry duplicated Peakes' Listening Charm on himself to hear his Aurors' communications.

As someone activated the transmission function of their Listening Charm, Harry heard a background noise of people pleading and whimpering.

"Aries alpha, this is beta – we've taken the punters. Warping them to custody,"

"Aries beta, this is alpha, roger that. Grab any Cabal men you find as well," Peakes tapped his ear once to deactivate transmission mode.

There was a great thud from the upper floor hallway, like something enormous dropping to the floor. "Can't let you do that, boys," shouted a voice from above.

Three Aurors fell from the balcony and crashed on top of each other in the centre pile of debris. Fast as an arrow, a blur of red and black shot down heel-first into the chest of an Auror, planting him into the ground. Murray leapt at another Auror; he dodged her first swipe at him, but his Hasted speed was nothing to hers; she caught him with her next punch and launched him to the ceiling.

"Don't touch my men," Murray pointed a finger at an Auror that was about to cast Disapparition on an unconscious Cabal man. Her whole arm, down to her fingertips, glowed with an intricate pattern of magical runes, deep red as if carved into her skin. Her fingernails became coated with bright red blood, lengthened to sharp points. A thin spear of blood fired from her extended nail and pierced the Auror's shoulder – the power of the shot took off his entire wand arm.

"Oh fuck," Peakes moaned, his eyes wide with fear. "All units, Murray is in the front lounge. Retreat on contact. I repeat, retreat on contact! Libra, deploy second gargoyle,"

Murray extended five fingers into the bar area, where Aurors were engaging Cabal men. Five threads of blood shot from her fingernails. She turned around and pulled – five Aurors, stabbed by the threads, flew out of the bar area and into the far wall of the lounge.

A loud whip-crack sound punctured the air – and a war-class gargoyle ballooned into existence behind Murray, Apparated in by the Sorcery Division. Twenty-five feet of hewn grey stone, the gargoyle gave a low rumbling groan and swung its arms down on Murray. Murray dodged, and the gargoyle's fists shook the ground. Circling around it, Murray's fists turned coated in dark red like satin gloves; she threw a flurry of punches at the artificial beast's shin, each blow leaving a small crack in its magically-hardened stone.

Harry heard another low groan from the upper floor – and another gargoyle dropped from the balcony, along with great chunks of wall that it had smashed in its path. The gargoyle crawled towards Murray, because one of its legs had been snapped off. Harry and all other Aurors bolted out of the way; the crippled gargoyle reared its grotesque head and breathed a wide red beam of energy at Murray.

Murray leapt out of the way and the beam tore through the wall behind her. A wave of falling ceiling broke from the bar area, caving half of it in rubble; Auror and Cabal men alike ran for their lives.

The building was falling apart – at any second the whole thing could come down at once. "All units, vacate the building!" Harry commanded through the Listening Charm network.

All Aurors turned on the spot and Disapparated; those that were unable to do were evacuated by their teammates. Soon all that were left in the lounge was Harry, Murray, and several unconscious Cabal men. Murray continued to battle the two gargoyles; she was fast enough to dodge their attacks, but could hardly find enough openings between the both of them to do significant damage to their durable bodies.

Murray leapt onto the back of the intact gargoyle, leading the crawling one to breathe its beam attack at the former's head. The gargoyle's head exploded to pieces, but it was still functional, grasping blindly at its back for Murray.

"So when is that Mass Disapp coming?" Murray tapped beside her ear and shouted tetchily. "Well step up the pace before we're all buried,"

A rain of ceiling now came down on the lounge. The unconscious Cabal men were in danger of being crushed; Harry cast standing Shield Charms over them – he narrowly managed to protect two of them in time before they were hit by rubble.

The reason the Cabal's sorcery was taking too long was that they had to charge up enough mana to pierce through the Sorcery Division's Anti-Warp Field. Harry tapped beside his ear.

"Libra, this is Ophis. Disable Anti-Warp Field. Over,"

"Sir?"

"Libra, that is an order. Do you read?"

"Roger. Disabling field,"

Murray appeared to have overheard Harry and turned in his direction; just then, the headless gargoyle, swinging wildly, connected with Murray and flung her to the wall.

"Murray!" Harry shouted. Both gargoyles readied their beam attacks at her – Harry used a Pulling Jinx and tugged her to the ground just before she was hit.

Harry's Listening Charm buzzed to life. "Ophis, this is Aries prime. Are you still at the building?!" cried Peakes.

"Affirmative – is everyone accounted for?" asked Harry.

"Yes, except you – get out of there!"

The two gargoyles both swung a fist down at Murray – she rolled forward out of their path. With renewed ferocity, she raced up to the crawling gargoyle and unleashed a torrent of punches to its face; chunks of stone spewed like shrapnel as she pulverized it into nothing. She leapt over the gargoyle as it blindly charged forward, into the bar area to be swallowed in a deluge of rubble.

Murray leapt onto the remaining gargoyle's chest – latching on with red nails extended into thick curved talons. With a blood-dyed fist, she pounded repeatedly at its chest. Her whole arm was a blur of red, the runes on it blazing bright and smoking. She punched deep into the gargoyle's chest and ripped out its instructional core – a rolled scroll of parchment. She leapt away and tore up the parchment; the gargoyle froze, still as the statue it was.

All around Harry, the unconscious Cabal men disappeared one by one, carried away by their Mass Disapparition sorcery. Murray hunched over with her hands on her knees, heaving with exhaustion, and the runes on her arms burned into her skin. As the building fell apart around them, she straightened up and smiled at Harry. She raised four fingers to her lips and blew a kiss at him before vanishing away.

Harry turned on the spot and Disapparated – the collapsing brothel spun and twisted away – and he landed in the deployment bay of the Auror Office Headquarters. It was a mostly empty room in the typical green brick style of the Ministry. It served mainly as a central lobby with access to the medical bay, the armoury, and other facilities that accommodated Auror operations.

A number of Aurors leant exhausted on benches lining the walls; some were dragging their feet to the other rooms; and a few were already taking a short nap, resting their foreheads on their arms against a wall.

Teddy groaned into a wall close to Harry. "Merlin's pants…that was Mina Murray?"

Peakes sat sprawled out on a bench next to Teddy. "Yup…that is an ancient vampire. Mage-level threat. Do not engage ever,"

"Jim, has Sorcery Div detected any casualties?" asked Harry.

"No," reported Peakes. "All the Cabal men escaped with the Muggle girls,"

Teddy shrugged his shoulders. "Well, we thrashed a Cabal den and arrested a bunch of punters, so I say we won this exchange,"

Peakes grunted. "So Harry, did you find that lead on the Knights?"

Before Harry left to find the Cabal brothel, he informed his men that he was pursuing a lead on the Knights of Walpurgis, and there was a possibility he might require assistance. Harry gathered himself to hold down the pang of guilt of keeping his men in the dark of his investigation.

"Sorry – it was a false lead. Didn't learn anything," muttered Harry.

"Ah well," Peakes pushed himself up and raised his voice to the Aurors around.

"Alright, move along you blighters, don't clog up the bay. Take a shower, nap, wait for debriefing. That was a smooth job out there. Who the bloody hell are we?" He demanded fiercely.

Everyone in the room broke from their stupor and roared as one. "Aurors!"

"What the fig does that mean?" shouted Peakes.

" _Aurora – Lux post aterrima!"_

"I don't speak bloody Latin!"

"Dawn – Light after the darkest!"

* * *

After a short but disappointing announcement to his Aurors that he didn't learn anything of worth, Harry Apparated back home. He opened the front door into the living room and spotted Ginny staring into the fireplace, dressed in outdoor robes. She whipped around at the sound of the door opening; Harry quietly closed the door behind him.

Harry knew that a scolding was coming, and that he deserved it. It was clear that Ginny had dropped her own work to come home when his Aurors informed her that he was held hostage by the Cabal. He had given her no warning at all that today he would be raiding a Cabal brothel – by himself, and with a significant possibility of being captured.

Ginny stood up from the couch and walked over to him. Her eyes were wet. She buried her face in his shoulder and hugged him tightly.

"Harry…I'm so glad you're safe," She gushed in relief. Harry put his arms around her as well.

"I'm sorry, Ginny," said Harry softly. "I should have told you," While he didn't have a habit of informing her of every operation, he did used to warn her before embarking on particularly dangerous ones.

Ginny's voice was slightly muffled from speaking into his shoulder. "How can you do something so dangerous? Barging into a Cabal den by yourself – that's crazy even for you,"

Harry knew that once he entered the brothel he would have to fight his way out; with the Elder Wand he was fairly confident he would be able to break through any Cabal reinforcements save for Murray; he honestly did not expect her to arrive and expose herself to being captured. However, at the back of his mind he suspected, even if Murray did show up, that she would let him go.

But to say that only felt like an excuse, so Harry apologized again.

"I'm sorry. It's…my job. No one else could have done it,"

"Harry…" He could feel Ginny's chest quiver as she drew breath. Slowly she released her hug and stepped back, holding onto his arms. Her nose and chin was dirtied by concrete dust that was still on his shoulder.

"I know…" She began quietly. "…that I can't understand what you go through. Sometimes I think I can but it's not even close. I want you to let me in but I know I can't force it…maybe it's more to help me than it is to help you. I just I can't stand being so powerless…with everything that's happened…and I've just been taking it out on you. I'm so sorry, Harry,"

"Ginny…" The past few days since their row had been excruciating for Harry. The tension between them cut like a wire, and her words back then echoed endlessly in his mind. She was right – he could not sacrifice everything for the sake of security. He had to strike a balance; he had to be more resourceful. He needed to believe in his own strength…and most of all, he needed to believe in others.

"I'm sorry for the things I said before," said Ginny. New tears welled in her eyes. "I understand if some things need to be kept secret. But I'm worried for you, Harry. Even if it's not me…please, trust _someone_. You can't do everything alone,"

Harry took her in his arms and embraced her again. "I won't."

It was not a careless decision – Harry had been thinking about the repercussions of it for over a week. But despite the dangers it would expose her to, he realized now it was something he needed to do – for his sake as much as hers.

"Sit down, dear," He let her go and gestured to the couch.

"Harry?" Ginny looked up at him.

"I'll tell you everything. But it's going to be a long story,"


	17. Chapter 17 - Hopeless

Chapter 17 – Hopeless

The Great Hall was once again in a bitter mood; students picked listlessly at their breakfast or discussed the news with grim faces. Some students did not touch their food at all; they only stared at their table in a state of shock. Earlier, a pair of Ministry police officers entered the Hall, went up to three separate students and took them outside.

In the dead hours of Monday morning, four English wizard villages were simultaneously retaken by Allied Muggle forces, utilizing vehicles and soldiers armoured with magic-resistant materials. Invisible to the villages' detection magic, soldiers captured twenty-five wizards in total before residents were alerted to evacuate. Those who managed to escape – about six hundred in total – did not have the time to take their homes or belongings with them. In one night, approximately thirteen percent of the wizarding population of Britain were left without a single possession but their wand and the clothes on their back. Those students that couldn't eat were those who had received word from their parents that their homes were gone; those students that were taken outside were told that their parents or relatives had been captured by the Muggle military.

According to the day's Daily Prophet, the Ministry responded ambiguously to press questions of when they will be retaking the captured villages. Tarquin Keppel, head of the wizard militia and the police, stated that tighter patrols will be implemented in other wizard villages, as well as a broadening of the passive coverage of barrier-type sensing magic from the Oculus Array. However, in Ethan's opinion, that alone would not be enough to prevent more of the same assaults from happening in future.

"I don't think me teaching is a good idea anymore," said Ethan. He was never extraordinarily keen to take on the burden, but now was looking like a particularly bad time to impose himself on the students.

McGonagall, seated beside him at the High Table, looked very aged up close. Her skin was pale and crinkled like thin parchment, her hair was grey half-striped with white, and her frame was so thin that her robes seemed to weigh down her shoulders. It made Ethan a little uncomfortable – a part of him never liked conversing up close with the elderly.

"Crawford has resigned, so there's no more need for this teacher position to protect me from expulsion," continued Ethan.

"You will still require Mr. Kleaner's protection, which I'm afraid might be needed now more than ever," McGonagall replied, looking soberly over the Hall.

"Are you sure you can't find a replacement for me?"

"I have reached out to our last Muggle Studies professor before Crawford. He was dismissed by the Board on the grounds of alleged inadequate performance, and has unfortunately taken it to heart. He is a retired man, but says he will consider the offer to return to Hogwarts and give me an answer soon,"

"Headmistress, if I may interject," said Professor Scrooby, seated to McGonagall's left. "I believe it would be best if the Muggle Studies students are given self-study periods until a proper replacement is found. The boy is not qualified to be a professor; it will definitely raise complaints from students and their parents,"

Scrooby was his usual acerbic self this morning – considering that he was always in a sour mood, he actually appeared the least adversely affected by the day's news out of all the grim-faced staff.

"There are no official qualifications necessary to be a professor at this school," McGonagall stated. "I shall coach Mr. Chen in the skills he needs to ensure that the quality of our students' learning continues undiminished. And I believe that Mr. Chen is possibly one of the most qualified teachers we've had for Muggle Studies in years,"

"I think that might be an overstatement," cut in Ethan. "I think I lack certain vital qualities to be an effective teacher. For one, I really hate children,"

Scrooby gave a short, surly bark of a laugh. "Hah! You haven't even started teaching yet," He leant forward to speak to Ethan in a low warning grumble. "Just wait until you have to talk to the little blighters about –"

"Wayne," said McGonagall. "I just remembered to inform you that this afternoon's staff meeting will be strictly Order business,"

Scrooby sat back upright. "I see. I'll help Sandra in managing the displaced families,"

The implication of that exchange piqued Ethan's interest. "So you're not in the Order," He addressed Scrooby. "You're the only staff here now who's not in the Order – save for the house-elves,"

Scrooby glared stiffly at him. "That is correct. I applied to be a teacher, not part of a political advocacy group,"

"I saw you with Crawford a few times," said Ethan. "Would you say your politics lean a little closer to his side?"

Scrooby aimed a dark snarl at him. "We hardly spoke to each other. I let him know early on that I wanted no part of the squabble between the Headmistress and the Board,"

"I see," said Ethan thoughtfully. "So Chairman O'Neill hasn't tried to recruit you to his cause? Are you going to be the next High Inquisitor?"

"No." Scrooby uttered with finality. "I told the Board I had no interest in any higher position, and I am not taking part of any Order business either,"

"I see," said Ethan. "So basically, you're too scared to pick a side,"

It took a beat for Scrooby to realize that Ethan said. He bristled, shuddering visibly, and nearly launched off his chair.

"Scared? Me? What about you, boy?" He growled. "Do you actually want to join the Order?"

Ethan cocked his head quizzically. "What are you talking about? I _asked_ to join the Order,"

Scrooby's words came with biting acidity. "Then you go on a rant to your entire classroom about how doomed wizardkind is to the 'superior' Muggle forces, and how we can't expect any mercy from them. If you're so confident that we're doomed, why are you even here in the first place?"

McGonagall held up her hands to both Ethan and Scrooby. "That will be enough from the both of you. Wayne, settle down; Mr. Chen's words are not worth getting riled over. Mr. Chen, you are still too new to the staff to already be picking fights with colleagues,"

Ethan held a philosophy of never holding his tongue on anyone, but he might also be holding a grudge on Scrooby for when he attempted to humiliate him for his Transfiguration test score, and then neglecting to punish Farley for harassing him. It was never a gnawing issue for him, but at least now his minor desire for payback was sated.

"Sorry if I offended you, Scrooby," said Ethan, touching his heart most grievously. "You are of course, my senior here, and I respect your…focused dedication to the education of our students,"

There was a soft 'pop' sound from in front of Ethan over the table. Ethan peered over the table and couldn't see anything. He looked under the table and found Kleaner, dressed as usual in his Hogwarts tea towel toga.

"Sir –" Kleaner bowed till his flappy ears touched the floor. "There is a call by Floo for sir from Ginevra Potter. Missus Potter wishes to arrange an interview with sir for the Daily Prophet,"

If Ethan weren't bending awkwardly on his side under the table he would have sat up in surprise. "Ginevra Potter? An interview?"

"Perhaps it will be easier to speak over the table," McGonagall waved her wand and a stool sprouted from under Kleaner, lifting him to eye level with Ethan.

"Kleaner thanks Headmistress very much," Kleaner bowed again. "What shall Kleaner tell Missus Potter, sir?"

Despite the Ministry's desire to keep Ethan from the limelight, it would be too suspicious if the Prophet did not write at least onestory about the Muggle boy who was currently teaching at Hogwarts. That it was Harry Potter's wife coming to interview him…he had some questions of his own for her, but he would first have to gauge how much she knew before hoping she could answer them.

"All right, I'll do it. When does she want the interview?" asked Ethan.

"This noon, sir,"

"Tell her to come up to my office then. When she comes, could you also bring a meal to us at the dining table?"

"Certainly, sir,"

"One more thing," said Ethan, as Kleaner was about to bow and poof away. "You can stop calling me 'sir'. 'Ethan' will do,"

"Oh no, sir," Kleaner shook his head. "It would not be appropriate for a house-elf,"

It was not the first time Kleaner had refused this request. Ethan had thought about ordering Kleaner to call him by name, but it would kind of defeat the point. Ethan now thought he would try a different angle.

"House-elves are bound by ancient contract magic to serve wizards, am I right?" asked Ethan rhetorically.

"Yes sir,"

"Well I'm not a wizard. You don't have to show me that sort of respect,"

Kleaner's large eyes rolled around as he considered his response. Then he piped up brightly. "Sir is correct. But Kleaner was ordered by the Headmistress to serve sir, so Kleaner must behave to sir in manner befitting servant,"

"You can still serve people without calling them sir. Do you refer to your elf colleagues by name?"

"Yes sir,"

"Well we are colleagues. So I want you to give me the same respect that you give them,"

Kleaner's eyes widened at him in astonishment, like he might be a growth of mould shaped like the Mona Lisa.

"Sir is very kind. But Kleaner is still thinking it is not appropriate at this time,"

Kleaner Disapparated in a wisp of smoke before Ethan could object.

"You wizards really did a number on the house-elves," said Ethan.

"It was our ancestors who cast that magic on them, not us," muttered Scrooby. "People have tried to break the Binding but failed,"

"Then why don't you just free them all? I read you can do that by presenting them clothes," said Ethan.

Scrooby explained testily. "When a master frees a house-elf, the Binding of Servitude makes them anxious. It will slowly drive them mad until they find a new master. The Binding also has mental conditioning that makes them enjoy serving; if they attempt to disobey their masters, the Binding drives them to punish themselves,"

"Utterly charming," remarked Ethan. "And I thought that subservient attitude was just beaten in. This makes it so much worse,"

McGonagall returned to the conversation. "Many of the house-elves we employ come from wizarding families who mistreated them in the past, granting them no pay or time for themselves. Mr. Kleaner was one such elf. But despite his past, he is a particularly bright and magically gifted individual, so I granted him the position of Caretaker. Perhaps he sees something in you, Mr. Chen, to have volunteered to be your assistant,"

Most likely, that something was pity for his predicament in being surrounded by wizards that would love to lynch him. _Great. I'm pitied by someone who's literally enslaved by magic._ Oh, how much more they could bond if Ethan told him of his nine-month domination by the Ministry.

The Great Hall was emptying; there were ten minutes left until the start of lessons; and Ethan's first lesson as the sole professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts.

"Shall we prepare for your first class, Mr. Chen?" said McGonagall.

Ethan sighed painfully. "Okay, let's go," He rose out of his seat with McGonagall.

Scrooby snorted at him. "Welcome to the wonderful world of teaching, boy,"

* * *

Ethan sat down at the teacher's desk in the Muggle Studies classroom; McGonagall stood serenely before him.

"Are you prepared?" She asked as he pulled out his lesson plan and Muggle Studies textbook from the desk drawer, both of which were left behind by a previous professor.

"Sure, I guess," Ethan did not get nervous; nervousness was for people who desire to impress others. He couldn't care less about how his teaching will be received. He was already quite certain of the impending outcome.

"Have you begun reading the book I handed you yesterday?"

"You mean 'The Professor's Pedagogical Guide'?" replied Ethan. "Read the first chapter and skimmed through the rest. Basically, it says that children are touchy little pricks who can't learn shit if one of their infinite emotional issues gets in the way,"

For most of last afternoon, McGonagall crash-coursed Ethan on the basics of lesson planning, teaching and learning styles, theory of knowledge, and classroom management. Ethan estimated he may have retained about ten percent of McGonagall's lesson.

"Were you a difficult student, Mr. Chen?" she asked coolly.

Ethan supposed it was an innocent enough question to answer. "I was a model student. I loved learning stuff; I loved being the best. Then things happened and I dropped out,"

McGonagall nodded; she already knew that from the writing of his past that he handed her. "What about your education after you left school?"

Ethan smirked in reminiscence. "Yes, I was a very difficult student. But the man who taught me was a difficult teacher,"

McGonagall looked behind her at the door. "Your students are arriving, Mr. Chen," She said as if she could see or hear them through the wall. "Let us begin,"

McGonagall cast a Listening Charm on her and Ethan, then swept her wand over herself; in a whoosh of air, she shrank to a barely visible speck and buzzed onto his shoulder.

McGonagall, transfigured into a ladybug, crawled under the collar of his shirt.

"I shall only provide occasional advice and commentary – the lesson is yours to conduct as you see fit," came McGonagall's voice directly into his head.

His first class of students entered the classroom, many with reluctant faces and shuffling feet. It was his own Muggle Studies class – the fifth-year Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Squibs. Lily entered with her friends; she kept her eyes down at the stone flagged floor, found her seat and sat down without looking up at Ethan.

Whatever that meant, Ethan pushed it out of his mind. When the classroom was filled, he stood up and addressed the class.

"Alright, so – as you heard yesterday, Mr. Crawford has resigned from Hogwarts. I will be taking over as Professor of Muggle Studies until McGonagall finds someone else,"

Lily was not the only one who refused to make eye contact; about half the class couldn't stand the sight of him. The other half glared daggers at him, wishing him a thousand painful deaths with their eyes.

Ethan could confront the class on their contempt; set the record straight that he was on _their_ side, and that making faces at him was not going to help them against the British-U.S. military. But he had eight different classes in total and couldn't be bothered to do that with _every_ class, so he carried on with his handed-down lesson plan.

"Let's begin, then. Last week Crawford covered the tactics and weaponry of World War II; today we will go over the end of the war and its aftermath. So, on the wizard side, WWII ended in 1945 when Gellert Grindelwald was defeated in combat by Albus Dumbledore. Shortly after, Grindelwald's Knights of Walpurgis scattered, and they lost their influence over Nazi Germany. Without the Knights' advice and protection regarding magic, Allied and Confederation forces pushed into Germany and won the war in Europe,"

Mutinous scowls rose from his class at the mention that Muggles and wizards once worked and fought together. "Can anyone g –" Ethan started to ask a question, realized he wasn't going to get an answer, and carried on regardless. "– give me an example of a combined Allied-Confederation operation?"

The class remained steeped in boiling dark silence. Ethan activated the projector on his desk; it shone onto the blackboard the first of some slides from the Muggle Studies cabinet of stored teachers' resources. The first slide was a basic timeline of Muggle-side events in 1945.

"In the battle of Berlin, the Confederation provided alchemical silver rounds to the Red Army, to combat werewolf and Inferi German soldiers,"

Ethan's voice was so flat, he would be offended by himself if he were listening to his own lesson. It was literally his first lesson, and already he was phoning it in. No one's eyes was focused on the blackboard – absolutely no one was paying attention to his lesson.

"Another example is the Battle of Okinawa, where MACUSA hijacked the Floo network of Mahōshō – the Japanese Ministry – and transported commandos of the U.S. Army onto the island before the main force,"

"That's skipping ahead, Mr. Chen," said McGonagall in his ear. "Go over the end of the Pacific War,"

"Okay, everyone take out your books and turn to page 80,"

No one took out their textbook; they only looked around to check that no one else was taking it out. Ethan didn't want to, but he couldn't resist the urge much longer – he took a glance at Lily. She didn't take out her textbook either; she kept her head down and eyes fixed to her desk.

 _It doesn't matter,_ Ethan told himself. _I knew this would happen._ After all, two days ago Lily witnessed Ethan frame a man with attempted murder and drive him out of his job with blackmail. It was inevitable, always inevitable, that Lily would come to see him for who he was, just like everyone else. If there was a pang in his chest, the only thing to blame for that pain was his own short-sighted foolishness.

"Just carry on your lesson, Mr. Chen," said McGonagall, a sad note in her voice. "We cannot force them right now,"

The classroom door slammed open; James marched in, his bearing fierce and resolute, followed by Torrian and half a dozen other seventh-years.

 _Oh great,_ Ethan moaned internally. He had a bad premonition of what was to come.

"Resign, Muggle," James declared with a shout – he was giving Ethan an order. "You have no right to be a teacher at this school,"

"Oh dear," muttered McGonagall.

Ethan realized where this confrontation was going, and that he was very likely going to lose; he didn't see much of a point in arguing, but gave it a token effort anyway.

"'No right'? McGonagall hired me, so like it or not, I ama teacher now,"

"You have noqualification to teach Muggle Studies – you've haven't had _one month's_ worth of lessons in the subject," James shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You have a clear habit of lying and hurting the reputation of others, just to get your way. You have no respect for any student or staff but yourself; you walk about with undeserved arrogance and you dare to demean our fight for our right to freedom. And most of all, you have a criminal history – you are an indicted criminal on the run from your own country. You are not fit to teach anything anywhere,"

"Everyone, if you don't want to be taught by this despicable person, then stand up and leave," James bellowed. "We will boycott all Muggle Studies classes by this person, and we will not stop until either he resigns or is dismissed!"

The classroom rang with the sound of moving chairs – every student stood up nearly simultaneously. Lily was last, but she stood up as well. Everyone was raring to walk out. Ethan had no hope of arguing his case to this crowd; his best hope of salvaging the situation was to throw James off-balance by taking him and the classroom on an enormous diversion. Yet in his pitiful mood, the gears of his imagination were jammed – he couldn't come up with anything potent enough to derail their fury. He had lost.

"Go ahead," Ethan spoke darkly. "I don't care what you do,"

James did not smirk, or laugh, or in any way revel in his victory – in James' eyes was only pure, profound hatred for Ethan and everything he stood for to him.

"No one will say a word to you and no one will listen to a word from you, unless those words are your resignation," said James coldly. "If you don't resign, we will issue a formal petition to Headmistress McGonagall to have you dismissed. If for some reason McGonagall doesn't do it, I will take the matter to the Board. I don't know what the Order wants with you, but it's not worth what you are,"

James turned and left. The entire classroom left with him. Ethan saw only a glimpse of Lily's hair within the crowd. When the class door slammed shut, he could hear cheering through it.

McGonagall flew out from under his collar and reverted back to normal beside him.

"Well," She uttered, her breath taken by shock. "I didn't know Mr. Potter held such animosity for you,"

"Me neither,"

Ethan went to the teacher's desk and dropped down in his seat. "Welp, I hope he didn't skip another teacher's class just to do that,"

* * *

Hogwarts was currently in the first half of lunch hour, when plenty of students were moving about between the common rooms, the Great Hall, and the grounds. Students greeted Ginny as she passed by them; though she switched to reporting politics a few years ago, most of them recognized her as the Daily Prophet's Quidditch correspondent. In the past, students who spotted her would flock over to ask questions about the current Quidditch season, or get advice on how to break into professional Quidditch. But for obvious reasons, Quidditch was no longer at the fore of people's interests. The school's mood was a lot more sober compared to her last visit, no doubt owing to the Muggle attacks last night.

Ginny climbed the dizzying, twisting Grand Staircase that she and all her peers fondly despised when they were students. She followed the lead of one 'Kleaner', apparently the personal assistant of the Muggle teacher at Hogwarts. Upon reaching the east landing of the seventh floor, Ginny felt winded and quietly upset at herself for it; she was nowhere as fit she used to be as a professional Quidditch player. While she switched careers to eat fancy lunches with news sources, Harry never stopped leaping into spellfire even after becoming Head Auror. Raising her children and being a journalist was definitely not a walk in the park, but in the last few years Ginny had fallen into a complacent pace, rarely pushing her limits as Harry did on a regular basis. In light of everything that he told her and all the dangers that lay before them, she recognized that she would have to step up in both body and mind if she wanted to fight at Harry's side.

Kleaner brought Ginny to a door and stepped aside for her to approach it. Ginny knocked on the door and a few seconds later it opened.

"Mrs. Potter. Nice to meet you," said Ethan Chen, her interviewee. "Come in please," He stepped aside and showed her into his office.

"Is there anything you'd like for lunch? Maybe your favourite meal from your Hogwarts days?" He gestured to a dining table, bidding her to sit.

"Oh; then can I have a shepherd's pie?" said Ginny, taking a seat on a plush dining chair. Kleaner bowed and Disapparated from the doorway.

Ethan sat down across from her. He had a short and thin build, making him seem even younger than fifteen in her eyes. But everything from his language, to his bearing, to his dark steady gaze, was eerily calm and mature. He gave off a distinct impression of being much more prepared for this interview than she was.

"You look a little tired," Ethan remarked.

Ginny didn't think she was displaying any clear signs of tiredness, so she was amazed that he was able to tell. "No, I'm fine,"

"You must have been up last night covering the aftermath of the Muggle attacks," Ethan stated with a cool certainty that he was correct.

Ginny was just a little bit light-headed. It was not the lost sleep that wore on her so much as the impact of all she had been through in the last twenty-four hours. "Thank you for your concern, but I'll soldier on," said Ginny. "Thank you very much for agreeing to speak with me,"

"Sure," said Ethan. "But the Daily Prophet took a while to get to me, didn't it? You didn't try to contact me when I was just outed as a Muggle, and not when I was just hired as a professor. Did the Daily Prophet only just learn about me? Or have you and your people been obstructed in some way until now?"

He went straight to asking _her_ questions. And he stared straight into her eyes with unmoving, unblinking scrutiny. Ginny reared back; she was uncomfortably reminded of when she was interrogated by the vampire Auror, but even he didn't stare at her so boldly, so rudely.

"There was…a media blackout by the Office of Ministry Intelligence," Ginny explained. "The Head of Intelligence himself came to the Daily Prophet. He reminded us that you were an informant for the Ministry, and so information about you was sensitive. He reminded us that the Ministry had the right to arrest us if we published anything about you…or learnt too much,"

"I see; Lowther's leaning on the media," said Ethan impassively. "So what changed?"

"Well, after you became a teacher, word about you spread on its own. The Prophet has been getting calls asking why we haven't reported anything about you. Ministry Intelligence told us that we can write one article so the public doesn't get too suspicious,"

Kleaner Apparated back into the room, carrying a dish in each hand. As he was too short to reach the top of the table, he levitated the dishes before both Ethan and Ginny. A wave of nostalgia warmed her heart when she smelled her Hogwarts shepherd's pie.

Ethan had a plate of fusilli carbonara. "Thank you, Kleaner. You can return to helping the other elves," He said to Kleaner; the house-elf bowed and Disapparated. Ethan then tented his fingers and returned to piercing Ginny with his gaze; he did not seem intent on eating his meal anytime soon.

"How much do you know about me, Mrs. Potter?"

The way he watched her so calmly, it was as if he already knew the answer, and was only daring Ginny to admit it.

"I know that you're a hacker. I know that you were part of an organized vigilante group called the Marauders, who targeted terrorists, criminal organizations, and anyone that supported them. And…I know what happened to you at the Ministry,"

"Oh?" Ethan's brows lifted. "So your husband told you about how he captured and freed me from the Ministry?"

"Yes,"

"Is that it?"

"…He also told me that you have a Memory Charm placed on you by Lowther. It blocks out information you have about Spooks planted in London. Lowther wants to kill you and Cadogan wants you returned to the Ministry in order to protect that information,"

That was everything about Ethan that Harry had told her. It was just one of many things that blew her away that day. Harry and several other Ministry officers dominated a year ago, and an unknown enemy manipulating everyone from the shadows…part of her was still reeling from the enormity of how utterly lost they were.

"Anything else?" asked Ethan, watching her response.

"No,"

One thing Harry had not told Ginny though, was what the boy was like. When Harry revealed his connection to the mysterious Muggle informant, she felt a tangled mix of guilt, sympathy, and apprehension towards him. Now however, her apprehension was much greater. She no longer had any difficulty reconciling the boy before her with the criminal feats he allegedly committed.

"Hmm. That's pretty much everything Mr. Potter would know. How nice of him to bring you into the loop," Ethan remarked. He paused a moment in thought before speaking again. "So why are you here, Mrs. Potter? What is the purpose of this meeting?"

Ginny wasn't quite sure what he meant. "The purpose? To interview you. The public has called the Prophet to learn more about you,"

"Yes, to satisfy their curiosity but not reveal anything too interesting. Since Lowther doesn't want people digging too deeply into my time at the Ministry. All it takes is a small publication and a confidential interview with one of the dungeon guards and that's another scandal on Cadogan's record. And of course, your husband will be implicated as well. If I'm not mistaken, you're supposed to be a political correspondent. I'm guessing that someone else was supposed to interview me, but you convinced him or her to give you the story instead,"

He was exactly right; when Lowther called the Daily Prophet to allow one article on Ethan, Ginny leapt to take it. She knew what _not_ to write; Lowther would probably be vetting the article anyway, but he would appreciate not having to intimidate the media any further.

"But you have another reason for wanting to speak with me," said Ethan. "You're afraid for your children,"

He was right again; the way he simply informed Ginny of her own thoughts made her think for a second that she was facing a Legilimens. Her confirmation must have shown on her face, as Ethan carried on speaking.

"You're afraid that I might harm your children as some kind of payback against Mr. Potter. I understand your concern, especially now that your son is currently leading a boycott of my classes. Have you heard about that?"

"Um, yes. I…heard about it downstairs," It was impossible to miss the students all over school passing around a petition to have Ethan Chen dismissed. After this meeting, she would have to pay a visit to James as well, though she was not entirely certain on what she would say to him yet.

Ethan was silent for several seconds. When he spoke again, his tone was suddenly softer and thoughtful.

"Well, I know my word is not absolutely assuring, but I promise you that I will never harm your children for anything your husband did. Actually I don't bear any ill will to your husband at all for kidnapping me. He was only doing what was best for wizardkind in Britain. I would have done the same in his position,"

Ginny heard him clearly, but couldn't quite believe it. Perhaps he was lying, only saying so to put her falsely at ease. To have suffered nine months dominated by the Ministry, a captive in your own body…Ginny couldn't imagine herself going through that and forgiving the people who did that to her.

"I'm sorry for –"

"You weren't involved, what are you sorry for?" Ethan interjected smoothly. "Of course, you don't have to take me at my word. Feel free to speak to McGonagall if you think I pose a threat to your children. Maybe some protective magic can be arranged for them, though they are already more than capable of defending themselves against a Muggle,"

Ginny honestly didn't know what to think. He was a potential threat to Lily and James; there was not a day she didn't think about Firenze's prophecy – the prophecy predicting that two of her family would die by the war's end. She didn't want to take any chances. But if Ethan truly wanted to hurt them…he had already had a month to do so. She hadn't asked Harry for his thoughts on the matter – why he thought it was safe to send the boy to Hogwarts where their children were. At the time she was too preoccupied with the other news he had given her. But she highly doubted that Harry had overlooked that potential danger; maybe he had already asked McGonagall to keep some of Hogwarts' magical surveillance on Ethan.

"Have…have you spoken to Lily and James?" asked Ginny.

Ethan rested his arms on the table. "A few times each. They don't know any more about me than the rest of the students,"

"You were the one who helped them with that incident. When Hugo and Rose were nearly thrown out of the school," said Ginny. When she heard of what happened that day from James and Lily, they gave only a passing mention about the 'Squib' who stalled the standoff long enough for Lily's boyfriend Torrian to chase the student mob away. She thought about finding that Squib to thank him, but didn't have the time during her visit.

"Why did you do that?" Ginny asked. "Why did you help them?"

"Hugo had helped me before, so I decided to return the favour," Ethan replied.

"So you're friends with Hugo?"

"No. No wizard is friends with a Muggle,"

Ethan straightened in his seat and fixed Ginny with a hard glare; it was like being plunged into deep water.

"Mrs. Potter, I only have one thing I want to know from you: is Mr. Potter still trying to help me escape? Or was handing me to the Order his purpose all along?"

It took a moment for Ginny to process the question, as the notion had not occurred to her. Harry, after all, was not in the Order, and opposed its advocacy of a tribunal for the Ministry – which to the Ministry's eyes was pretty much a surrender. Distantly she recalled rumours that Ethan had requested to join the Order of the Phoenix; at first thought, the question he was asking didn't make sense at all.

"He never said anything about you joining the Order. He's still looking for a way to return you to Muggle territory," she answered honestly.

Ethan leant forward ominously. "You're lying." He declared with his voice hard as stone. "McGonagall told me that he plans to take me to the Order in London,"

Ginny's expression widened in confusion. "What? She did?" Harry never told Ginny that. After everything else he had told her, why would he keep that a secret? Was returning the boy to Muggle territory a lie, or did he change his mind?

Still as death, Ethan drew every inch of her into the dark pit of his eyes. After what felt like a whole minute, the boy lifted the pressure of his gaze; he sighed down at his cooling plate of carbonara before looking up again.

"I see. My apologies – that was a lie," Ethan relaxed back in his chair. "I only wanted to see if you were telling the truth. I think I'm fairly confident that you are,"

The boy was not outright intimidating, so much as deeply unsettling. It was unsettling because he was so abnormal, so alien, that Ginny struggled to understand anything about his character or motivations. No…there was one person she could compare him to: Lord Voldemort – more specifically, the spectre of his teenage self that once possessed Ginny. The dredging up of that memory turned her stomach; that was three decades ago, but her vision of the young Dark Lord was clear as it ever was, even though she never faced him physically. He possessed the same unnerving calm, advanced maturity, and inscrutable character that she now saw before her.

"I would appreciate an update on his progress," said Ethan. "Has he managed to book a smuggling cart?"

Ginny was almost afraid of giving him the answer. "Um, no. He…might not be able to get one anymore. The Cabal won't let him,"

Ethan's expression remained stationary – or more accurately, he held it still with trained discipline.

"I see. So my only way out of here is through the Order, after all,"

Ethan picked up his fork and started to eat his meal. After swallowing a forkful he said, "You should eat your pie before it gets cold,"

Ginny found that she didn't have any appetite. Still, she picked up her cutlery and dug into her meal.

"Feel free to start your interview any time," said Ethan as he ate.

Ginny felt no enthusiasm towards conducting the interview; actually, since she didn't intend to publish any information that would draw further attention to Ethan, she already knew enough to write an article and didn't have to ask any questions at all.

But something Ethan said earlier drew her attention; awakened her curiosity despite her uneasiness.

"You want to leave here?" Ginny asked.

Ethan pausing in spearing up his pasta. "Yes – though I'd prefer you keep that off the record. Of course I want to leave Hogwarts. I'm a prisoner here, and at the mercy of everyone with a wand,"

Ginny still felt some sympathy for his situation, even as she knew now that he was not as pitiable as she thought.

"So, you joined the Order in order to find a way out?"

"Yes; eventually they'll have to get me to a computer. I'm not much use to them without one,"

"So, do you truly want to help the Order?"

Ethan set down his fork and thought about his answer.

"If you were in my position, would you?" he asked rhetorically and idly looked about his own office. "I don't really have a choice in the matter, but it doesn't mean I won't help the Order. At least they haven't found a need to dominate me yet. What about you, Mrs. Potter? Are you involved with the Order?"

Ethan was not scrutinizing her as he did before; he was making casual conversation now, or at least that was how it appeared.

"No. I don't believe the Ministry should subject themselves to a Muggle-run tribunal,"

"Oh, definitely not," agreed Ethan. "If that were to happen now, the trial would just formally charge the Ministry with those domination-suicides and fully legitimize a total capture and overthrowing of your wizard government. I fully agree with the strategy your husband has taken in fighting this war. But to end it, you will eventually need to negotiate for peace. I'm sure Mr. Potter understands that himself,"

So they were discussing the war now. It seemed like they were likely to discuss everything before getting to her interview questions.

"So…do you want to help wizardkind?" asked Ginny. It was actually one of her interview questions, and something she struggled to believe was true after everything the boy had been through.

Ethan said nothing for a while, before letting out a weary sigh.

"Well, as you already know, I'm not volunteering out of pure compassion for wizard society; it's mainly to get out of this school. However…this war is hurting Mugglekind as well – people are terrified of walking on the streets, and the economy is sinking every day. In the U.S., there's two MACUSAs now – the 'rebel' one and the one that the U.S. government has propped up. It…remains to be seen where that strategy is going, but my bet is it won't lead to peace any time soon,"

It took a lot longer than with most people, but Ginny felt like she was starting to grasp the shape of the boy's character – or to be more precise, make an estimation of the things she didn't yet know about him. The honest replies he has made were not things that a young Voldemort would have said. There was definitely more to him than the menacing persona he projected; Ginny knew a little about acting tough to compensate for one's natural smallness.

"But, if you find a chance to leave the Order and return to your normal life…you'll leave?"

Ethan's eyes widened at her question; then he smiled wanly.

"Heh. When you put it that way, it does sound like I'll never get out of here," He absently picked at his meal. "I suppose there are worse fates. I don't have an ordinary life to return to, anyway,"

"…What about the Marauders?" said Ginny.

Ethan shook his head. "I left the Marauders shortly before I was taken by Mr. Potter. By now, they should have figured out what happened to me. But I haven't seen any sign of them trying to find me or contact me; they probably think I'm dead by now. They…have no reason to care about me. I was always…just a hacker to them,"

Listlessly, Ethan took another forkful of his food, then looked up at Ginny. "So, about that interview. When are you going to start?"

Ginny felt like she had been in his office for several hours. She was far too drained to waste both of their time in asking questions to which she already knew the answers to.

"Um, I think that won't be necessary," she said.

"I see," Ethan gave a shrug. "Well, I don't know much about journalism, but you should definitely get some quotes from students about what a terrible person I am. It's what everyone already knows about me and it's what they'll want to read from your article. Also, I'll be resigning in err, two days' time, so you can even prepare a second article in advance if you like,"

"You're resigning?" Ginny breathed.

"Of course I am," said Ethan, in the polite, cordial manner he had when they first greeted each other. "If I resign, at least the students can conduct self-study in class until a proper Muggle Studies teacher gets hired. But I'll give your son and the rest of the school at least two days to savour their righteous rebellion. Victory just isn't as sweet if the villain gives in too quickly,"

Ethan paid her a weak smile.

"I hope, Mrs. Potter, that this meeting has answered the concerns you had about me. And hopefully that you no longer feel too guilty about the person that your husband kidnapped. You could say I've had this coming for a long time,"

* * *

After finishing her meal, Ginny bid Ethan goodbye and left the office. The moment that she stepped out was like breaching the surface from deep water; she gulped fresh air into her lungs and walked away in a slight daze.

Before returning to the Daily Prophet offices, there were a couple more things she wanted to do at Hogwarts: speak to Professor McGonagall and to her children. She had much to discuss with McGonagall: what Harry and her agreed on regarding Ethan, what her actual plans for Ethan were, and what activities the Order was currently engaged in. That conversation was likely to take a long time, so she opted to find her children first.

Standing at a hallway adjoining the Grand Staircase, Ginny pulled out her multi-mirror and pushed the third button-sized mirror along the right side of the frame. Her reflection in the mirror disappeared in a smoky fog; her multi-mirror was reaching out to one of the contacts linked with it. Ginny waited several seconds, and the mirror returned to normal – James didn't answer his multi-mirror. She tapped the fourth button and waited again.

Her daughter Lily appeared in the mirror, and in the background Ginny recognized the rough stone walls of a dungeon classroom.

"M-Mum! What's up?"

"Lily, I'm at Hogwarts right now," Ginny told her.

"Oh really? W-Why are you here?"

Lily didn't seem surprised to find her at Hogwarts; one of her friends might have spotted her earlier and told Lily about it.

"I'm reporting on the Muggle boy here. Where's James? He didn't answer his mirror,"

"Oh, um – James is in Hogsmeade right now; he's talking to people who lost their homes last night, bringing them food and asking what supplies they need,"

"Where are you?"

"We're in the dungeons – err, classroom D2E,"

"Alright, I'm coming over,"

It was a long walk down from the seventh floor to the second level of the dungeons. Along the way, she passed a line of students heading up to the Entrance Hall, carrying – and some levitating – stacks of cardboard boxes. They were aid packages for the displaced families, likely containing toiletries, candles, clothes, food…essentials that people were forced to leave behind last night. The students carrying them would be members of Hogwarts' Army: the group her son organized to help the Ministry militia by producing potions and other supplies they needed.

Ginny entered classroom D2E – it was a potions classroom, but the usual long tables had been replaced with multiple rows of large, waist-high cauldrons, each row tended by two or three students. Judging by the soapy smell over the room, it appeared that the cauldrons were brewing soap for the displaced families.

She spotted Lily waving at her from one of the rows of cauldrons; she was with Rose and Hugo, Ginny's niece and nephew through her brother Ron.

"Hi mum," said Lily as she approached. Rose and Hugo greeted her with an 'Aunt Ginny'.

The three of them were handling seven cauldrons of pink bubbling solution that would eventually become soap. "So Hogwarts' Army is helping the displaced families?"

"Yeah. It's…really terrible what happened," Lily said soberly.

Ginny remembered how she had learnt about the Muggle assault: her chief editor called her in the middle of the night and told her to tune to the Wizard Wireless Network, a partner of the Daily Prophet that bought its news from them. She told Ginny to get down to Caelorum and help in the live coverage of the families pouring in. The Ministry militia guided them to the city's park and Quidditch stadium, and helped them pitch the tents they were to stay in, over fifty at her last count. It was a long and dismal night, and she had yet to make up for her lost sleep.

"When is James coming back from Hogsmeade?" asked Ginny.

"He didn't say," Hugo replied. "He's also visiting the other villages that are taking in families – to find out how much supplies we need to make and what else we can do to help,"

"Do you need him for something, Aunt Ginny?" asked Rose, stirring one of the cauldrons.

"Yes; I heard that he just started a boycott,"

The three children before her immediately looked uncomfortable. Ginny didn't need her journalistic instincts to tell her that they had dreaded this topic.

"Do you know the Muggle boy that's recently become the Muggle Studies professor? Ethan Chen?" Ginny asked.

The three exchanged tense looks, each silently beseeching the others to speak for them.

"Yes; the whole school knows about him," said Hugo.

"He was the Squib who helped you in that incident, wasn't he?" Ginny said to Hugo.

"Yes, he was," Hugo sounded rather glum in admitting it.

"Well, how well do you know him?"

"Why do you ask?" asked Hugo, behaving uncharacteristically guarded.

"I'm writing an article about him, so I want to know what he's like and how everyone feels about him," Ginny reached into her purse and pulled out her notepad and Transcript Quill; the bright red quill stood balanced on its tip when she placed it on the notepad. She didn't really need more information about Ethan; her main reason for speaking to them was to find out how much they had interacted with him – particularly if he had told them anything about his time in the Ministry.

"Um…" as Hugo spoke, the Transcript Quill recorded his words verbatim. "I don't know him very well; he doesn't share much about himself,"

"So you've spoken to him?" said Ginny.

"Um, yes; he was in the Chess Club for a while,"

That took Ginny by surprise; from what she knew, the Chess Club was supposed to be a hangout of some of Hugo's closest friends. It was becoming evident that the three of them had interacted with Ethan quite a bit.

"So what is he like?"

Hugo mused hard on what to say. "He's…very different. He's incredibly smart. And calm. He seems distant, but he's very observant about people – it's like he can read your mind,"

Ginny felt a little bit of relief that her impression of Ethan was not a unique experience. She briefly considered if she should speak to some of the professors about him as well – Dean and Neville if they were available.

"If he was in the Chess Club, then have you've spoken to him, too, Rose?"

"…a few times, yes," she replied.

"What can you tell me about him?"

Rose contemplated the contents of the cauldron in front of her, stirring a lot more slowly.

"He…has a very unique way of thinking. He's very cynical, and blunt, and…utilitarian,"

"Utilitarian?" Ginny thought that was an odd choice of word, but she trusted Rose's exactness in vocabulary.

Finally Ginny turned to her daughter. "What about you, Lily? Do you know Ethan Chen?"

"H-Huh?" Lily stammered. "Do I know him? Err, a little, I guess,"

Ginny had a great deal of experience in judging when her children were hiding something; and Lily was a lot easier to read than James and Albus were when she was trying to identify the culprit of the latest childhood mischief.

"Well? What do you think of him?"

"Are you going to write what we say in your article?" Lily asked nervously.

Ginny looked at her daughter quizzically. "No; I just want to know more about him right now,"

"Well…like Rose and Hugo said, he's just…really weird. I mean, he's a Muggle, and everyone hates his guts, but he goes around like he's not afraid of anything," The longer she spoke, the faster Lily's voice got. "He's not afraid of making speeches to huge crowds, he's not afraid of ripping into bullies or teachers, and he comes up with these crazy schemes that always work –"

"Woah, slow down, Lily," said Ginny; her Transcript Quill was several lines behind and scrawling away to catch up. "What do you mean 'everyone hates his guts'?"

Lily calmed down and bowed her head pensively. "Most people think he's a little arrogant," she said.

"And cruel," added Hugo.

"And scheming," appended Rose.

"Cruel?" That was a major charge to levy on someone. "How do you mean 'cruel'?"

"He's done a number of…hurtful things," said Hugo sadly. "I know he did them for good reasons…but I'm sure there had to be a better way. I'm just worried by how he does it so easily,"

"Do you think he's cruel?" Ginny asked the two girls.

Rose stopped stirring and turned away, looking terribly conflicted. "I don't know. I don't think he enjoys hurting others, at least from the things he's said. But then, it's hard to trust what he says, because he's so good at deception. If I just knew more about him, maybe then – but I don't think can judge anything until I do,"

Ginny realized with a click in her head that she knew exactly how Rose felt. It was how she had felt towards Harry for the past month, when he became more close-lipped than usual. She turned to her daughter, and recognized the look on her face; it was wracked with guilt, like the time she followed James on one of his pranks on Albus, and dipped his paint brushes in Acidic Ink.

"Lily?"

"I don't know…everyone else in school is so certain that he's…evil,"

Ginny felt a twinge of disappointment; she had hoped that she had raised Lily better than to be swayed by the opinions of the crowd. If she didn't like Ethan – which she would completely understand – she at least wanted her to have her own reasons.

"…but how can they be so sure when they barely know him? I want to trust Ethan –" she held her head in her hands. "– but I'm not sure I even know who he is,"

In the awkward silence that followed, Ginny struggled with how she should respond. She had more reason than the children did to distrust Ethan, and those reasons melded deep with her impression of how horribly he resembled the young Lord Voldemort. But seeing Lily in such agony was making her reassess her opinion of the boy. When Ginny didn't know what to think of Harry's recent secrecy, it hurt her beyond agony. She decided that the pain of that distrust was worse than anything he could actually be hiding; when she heard that Harry was taken hostage by the Cabal, she recognized that nothing mattered more than them being together.

"Lily," Ginny put a hand on her shoulder. "You can never know everything about someone; they'll always have secrets. If it really bothers you, then you have to make a decision based on what you _do_ know. To go on constantly fearing something is always worse than the thing itself,"

The three of them looked stunned at Ginny. Lily lowered her hands.

"A decision?" she muttered softly. "On what I know…"

The room filled with the dull chime of the school bell. The other students in the room started putting out the fires under their cauldrons.

"That's the bell – we have classes now," muttered Hugo. Both Lily and Rose still seemed to be mulling over Ginny's words.

"Well, I have to get a move on as well," Ginny stowed her notepad and quill back into her purse. "Study hard and help each other out, alright?"

"We will – bye, Aunt Ginny," said Rose and Hugo.

Lily gave her a small smile. "Bye, mum,"

Even in the darkest moments of their lives, Lily's smile was always genuine, and never failed to light a spark in Ginny's heart. People who met the both of them tended to comment on how similar she and her daughter were; if Lily wasn't around, she would admit to them the truth of what she thought – that Lily was better. Ginny had personal courage and Harry had moral courage, but Lily had a different type of courage that both of them lacked. So while Ginny and the rest of the wizarding world did not know enough about this strange boy to trust him, maybe Lily could see something that no one else could, and that was enough for her, even if that something was uncertain. If she wanted to trust this strange boy with the potential to help them all, then Ginny would trust her to make her own choices. And whether or not her faith was rewarded, Ginny knew that she would always find the strength to carry on.

* * *

Since Ethan had no classes to teach anymore, he spent his afternoon reading up on History of Magic. After about fifteen minutes he gave up trying to concentrate, and instead drifted off to ruminate on how ludicrous his life had become. At the sound of the four o'clock bell, signalling the end of lessons for the day, Ethan made his way to the staffroom at the ground floor. He passed by many students down the Grand Staircase, who were just pouring out of class. Their usual leers at him were now accompanied by a helping of smugness, since they viewed it as some sort of victory over him that the whole school was boycotting his classes. It didn't matter to Ethan at all; he was worried before that he wouldn't be a good enough teacher – but thanks to the bravery and unity of the student body, he didn't have to worry about that anymore.

Ethan had never gone near the staff room before, but had learnt the directions from Kleaner. It was in a corridor off the Entrance Hall, and its entrance was unmissable due to being guarded by two nine-foot tall gargoyles. As Ethan approached, the statues came alive and turned to face him, their stone bodies shifting and twisting as though it were flesh.

"Well, would ya look at that," remarked the left gargoyle. "Fresh blood at the staff room,"

"Aye, _very_ fresh blood," agreed the right gargoyle, eyeing Ethan suspiciously. "He's even wearing students robes; if even the Headmistress hadn't told us 'bout you, we woulda thought you a student,"

The portraits that hung all over the school, the Sorting Hat, and the two gargoyles before him were all examples of magical sentience programmed by the founders of Hogwarts. Their life-likeness far outstripped anything from the current state of artificial intelligence; and Ethan read that few wizards have since come close to replicating the sentient complexity achieved by the founders.

"You're a little early for that staff meeting," said the left gargoyle. "Wee advice for you, new kid; don't come for meetings too early,"

"Aye," concurred the right gargoyle. "Or you'll have to make small talk with whoever else came early,"

The magical sentiences around Hogwarts were so life-like, one might make the honest mistake of believing they _were_ alive. Ethan had conducted conversations with a number of portraits around the school, trying to find out for certain. What he learnt confirmed that they, at least, did not possess same freedom of thought that the human condition suffered.

"Are you conscious?" Ethan asked, a question he liked to start with in his experimentation.

"Conscious? No; we're just highly complex enchantments," said the left gargoyle airily.

"Don't think too much about it, kid," said the right gargoyle.

"All of our behaviour is the product of perceptive and cognitive algorithms, which may be self-modified by instruction or experience to more effectively serve our primary and secondary functions," said the left.

"Our primary function is to defend the staff, students and premises of Hogwarts from major harm,"

"Our secondary function is to provide light sarcastic humour to staff and students who engage with us,"

Since he was apparently early, Ethan thought he might as well chat with the gargoyles to pass time until the staff meeting.

"Don't you ever get bored following just those two functions?" he asked.

"Fortunately, 'bored' is not a behavioural subroutine in our programming," replied the right gargoyle.

Magical sentiences considered emotions like boredom to be no more than a sequence of actions, providing no functionality beyond a simulation of human-like behaviour. From that, Ethan assumed that they didn't actually feel the emotions they simulated; he wondered at great depth if such an existence could possess consciousness. And how different such a consciousness would be to his own if it did.

"That does sound fortunate. I have a lot of unnecessary subroutines I wish I could get rid of," Ethan said impassively. "Things like 'hope' and 'disappointment',"

"Oh boo hoo," the left gargoyle mocked with a pantomime of rubbing tears from its grotesque face. "You artefact sentiences don't understand how lucky you are,"

"Oh what a burden, what a tragedy this free will thing is," the right gargoyle raised its hands and head upward in dramatic woe.

"We've _never_ heard that one before," moaned the left. "Not in our thousand years of standing here,"

"Yours is such a unique and agonizing pain," sympathized the right. "No other being has _ever_ had to contend with the level of hope and disappointment that _you've_ endured,"

Ethan only intended his words as a facetious comment, but now thoroughly regretted making it. "You two aren't funny at all,"

The sound of footsteps signalled someone entering the corridor. It was a professor, Ethan recognized, as he had seen her before at the High Table, though he had not spoken to her. She was a queer-looking woman; frail with frizzy brown hair, yet heavily adorned with gaudy accessories. Her thick glasses made her eyes bulge like baubles, her shoulders wore a glaring, sparkling shawl, and her neck and wrists bore strings of multi-coloured beads. All in all, she somewhat resembled a gypsy Christmas tree.

"Ah, you must be the boy whose name vibrates through the halls of our school," the professor spoke in an intense, ethereal whisper. "Ethan Chen,"

"Err, yes that is my name. And you are?"

"Sybill Trelawney, Professor of Divination," Trelawney twirled her arms while she was about to conjure something. "I foresaw that we would meet this day,"

"…You did?" Ethan said uncertainly. He had read a lot on divination magic from the library, but had never seen any of it in practice before. Timothy and Varun told him before that divination was unreliable, but the possibility of gleaning any bit of information about the future intrigued him more than any other branch of magic.

"Well, what do ya know, I foresaw that, too," exclaimed the right gargoyle. "Weren't that difficult, since there's a staff meeting today,"

Trelawney turned her nose up. "Do not mind the gargoyles – they're defective,"

"She's calling _us_ defective,"

"Someone should take a look at her fashion coordination module,"

"Let us enter the staff room, shall we?" Trelawney entered through the door and Ethan followed her in. The staff room was a modestly sized room, and like many other rooms at Hogwarts, furnished in a woody Baroque style. A long conference table stood in the room's centre, and around the modest space was also a fireplace, lounge chairs, a chess table, and a notice board. No one else had yet to arrive.

"Now where were we – ah yes," Closing the door, Trelawney gazed upon him with magnified beady eyes. "I know much about you, my boy,"

"You do?"

"Oh yes; I am highly gifted in the Sight. Visions come to me, sometimes unbidden – and oft of late I see visions, past and future, of you. Love and fortune, trial and woe – it is a tumultuous life that you lead,"

Ethan was getting more sceptical with every line Trelawney spoke.

"Okay. Not sure what that means, but you say you know about my past?"

"I did indeed,"

"Can you tell me something about my past, then? Something that Headmistress McGonagall didn't share with you through the information that I gave her,"

Trelawney's mystical bearing faltered. "A-Ah. Yes, of course. As I said, it is surely a tumultuous life you have led, to have forged such a precocious young man…one of my many visions…" Her eyes turned aside in an obvious sign of inventing information. "…was of you packing your belongings, preparing to leave your parents' home for the last time,"

"That's part of the information I gave McGonagall," said Ethan. "So you saw me packing to escape the FBI?"

Trelawney's enlarged eyes drooped sympathetically. Her glasses exaggerated all her expressions and made her incredibly easy to read. "Ah, yes. My condolences for what happened to –"

"What you did see me packing?" Ethan asked pointedly.

"Um, clothes, um…and…" Trelawney stopped, reaching a loss for words. "…that's all I see. My visions aren't continuous – they come in flashes, you see,"

"Okay; did you hear any dialogue in your visions? Like what my parents said to me as I left?"

"I…I don't know," Trelawney said awkwardly. "My visions don't always have sound. But it must have – I mean, I remember it was a very emotional exchange,"

"Actually, I didn't say anything at all. I left while they weren't looking," Ethan felt more like he was speaking to a fraudulent fortune teller than a witch with actual powers. "Do you have any concrete proof that you've seen anything of my past?"

"The Sight is anything but concrete – mostly I experience flashes of a scene, swells of emotion, an inkling of an association…"

"That sounds awfully open to interpretation. Are you…a particularly good diviner?"

Trelawney breathed deep with great indignation. "How rude! I have made many predictions that came true! But no seer can glean whatever knowledge she wishes from the Aether. I said I had visions about you – I didn't say they contained information you hadn't already shared,"

"Well then, you should have said so earlier," Ethan couldn't yet tell what her purpose was in the first place in bringing up her 'visions'; perhaps it was her idea of an interesting conversation opener. But Ethan wasn't in the mood for a conversation at the moment; he turned away to find a seat at the conference table.

"Wait," cried Trelawney. "Allow me to read your palm,"

Ethan sighed and offered her one more chance; he gave her his palm and she set her magnified eyes on it, her nose just an inch from his fingers.

"Oh my," said Trelawney with fascination. "You have a singular transverse palmar crease," She gently traced the horizontal crease across his palm with a finger. "Your heart line and head line are joined. This is quite rare,"

"It is?" Ethan had never exactly paid attention to how the creases of other people looked; he felt a brief instinct to check online the veracity of her statement, before he remembered where he was.

Trelawney held up his other palm to her meticulous scrutiny. It too had a horizontal crease. "It is also called a simian line. The joining of the heart and head line signifies that your mind and your heart are deeply entwined. You may have difficulty separating emotion from reason. Entangled as they are, you unavoidably pour the strength of both into your endeavours, to both good and ill. You are a man of intense, singular focus, of tenacity, forcefulness and ambition, and sometimes…" Trelawney paused dramatically. "…brutality that is at once heartless and vindictive,"

Trelawney looked expectantly at Ethan, possibly waiting for him to gasp in awe.

"So…did you use any magic for that?" he asked.

Trelawney blinked twice. "Pardon? O-Oh, no. Well, with the Sight I can make out lines of the soul that mundane eyes cannot see, but this much knowledge doesn't require –"

"Then it's no more than the pseudoscience that Muggles have," Ethan took back his palms. "With vague and ambivalent descriptions like that, you're bound to hit some points, but the crux of your reading is still thoroughly wrong. Difficulty separating emotion from reason? I'm sorry, but that sounds like the exact opposite of who I am,"

So far, he had seen no evidence of divination magic plucking any reliable information from the future. He had gotten his hopes up again, but that was a mistake he should have learnt from by now – nothing in this school failed to disappoint him.

Trelawney's face fell dejectedly; Ethan felt a pang of guilt at possibly being a little harsh. Then the door opened and in entered Professor Thomas and Longbottom.

"Afternoon Professor Trelawney, Ethan," said Thomas. "You're here early,"

Longbottom glanced at the both of them. "You two were just chatting?"

"Yes," Ethan replied. "Professor Trelawney read my palm,"

"Oh," said Thomas. "You didn't predict his death, did you professor?" he asked blithely.

Ethan thought that was unusually specific. "No, but she did say I may have a tendency towards brutality,"

"Well, uh…"

"Oh, yes! I almost forgot!" Trelawney exclaimed, her eyes popping wide open. "Why I wanted to speak to you – I saw – I saw –"

"Oh, there it is,"

"Young boy…" She pointed a trembling finger at Ethan, her voice shaking with trepidation. "I saw your death!"

The four of them stood in silence for several seconds, in varying degrees of horrorstruck-ness. If Trelawney hadn't already made two poor readings, Ethan might have been slightly disconcerted.

"Really? How do I die?"

"How…" Trelawney put her heavily accessorized hands to her temple and thought furiously. "The details of my visions are cloudy; like a dream, my memories of them can melt away rapidly. It was horrifying, though. There was…a huge wound, gushing like a tap, as though you were struck by a great beast. You fell to the ground, covered in blood. And you closed your eyes calmly…"

"Wait," said Thomas, now looking concerned. "So this is a real vision? It's not…like, what you usually do?"

"What do you mean?" said Ethan.

"Uh, well…" Thomas vacillated between Trelawney and Longbottom, deciding if it was fine for him to speak. "Professor Trelawney predicts the death of one student every year – it's err, her way of spicing up her subject. Of course, she or another teacher always tells the student that it's not real,"

"Is that what this is?" Ethan turned sharply on Trelawney. "You're trying to pull my leg?"

"N-No," Trelawney sputtered, glancing briefly at Thomas. "I really did see your death!"

Ethan saw the flicker of doubt behind her thick glasses – that in itself did not mean she was lying, but it did suggest she was hiding something. There was no facial signal that invariably indicated deception. Rather it was the inconsistencies between how one behaved and how they should be behaving that revealed deception.

Ethan had been watching Trelawney as she recalled her 'vision'; though she said the memory was horrifying, and tried to look fearful, her face lacked the microexpressions – such as a flat drawn brow or raised upper lip – that signalled true fear. When Ethan accused her of pulling his leg, Trelawney showed nervousness. That was understandable under his scrutiny, but he also noticed, for an instant, when she glanced at Thomas, her brows scrunching together, her nostrils flaring, and one side of her mouth raising: microexpressions that signalled contempt.

"You're lying," said Ethan, his voice turned hard and cold. "You're just mad that I didn't take your terrible attempts at divination seriously. It is clear to me at a glance that you're a woman with self-esteem issues – predicting students' deaths to gain attention is pathetic enough, but the least you could do is be semi-competent at the subject you profess to teach,"

Trelawney gaped with a quivering lip; that would be a sign that she was trying not to cry. Ethan did not take pleasure in other people's hurt and did not do it just because he could, but he did not give out sympathy for no reason either.

"Ethan, I think that was uncalled for," said Longbottom, turning uncharacteristically stern. "You should apologize to her,"

"Only after she apologizes," replied Ethan. "Has _no one_ ever told her to cut off such a terrible practice?"

"You don't for certain if she's lying," said Longbottom. "If her vision was real, she's trying to help you – we should tell the Headmistress about this at the meeting,"

"T-That won't be necessary," said Trelawney in a panic. "I mean, I'm not – err, entirely sure he was dead, or, err, if it was him, actually,"

Ethan was now extremely confident that Trelawney was lying. "Yes, I think we should bring this 'vision' up at the meeting; and you should hand your memory of it to McGonagall so we can all view it in a Pensieve,"

Trelawney looked at him as all people eventually did: with full-blown fear and contempt. "You…I sense a terrible aura about you," she breathed ominously, shaking a crooked finger at him. "Never have I beheld a child with a greater capacity for evil. Your life line is deep, but short and frayed – a life of unending calamity awaits you, boy, unless you mend your evil ways!"

She pulled her shawl tight over her shoulders and scampered to a faraway seat on the conference seat. Thomas filled the ensuing silence with an awkward chuckle into a sigh. "Ha hah, hah…some people never change," he said quietly. "Let's uh…leave it at that, the rest will be arriving any second,"

Ethan took the closest seat at one corner of the foot of the table. After some deliberation, Thomas and Longbottom decided to sit beside him.

Thomas, who sat nearer beside Ethan, turned to him with a troubled look. "So Ethan; have you always done this?"

Ethan foresaw a lecture coming. "Done what?"

"Calling people out the moment that you meet them,"

"Only if they ask for it,"

"Everyone has flaws. You can't go through life calling people out for every single one," said Thomas.

"Why not? If someone has a flaw, you have to tell them about it,"

"Most of the time, they already know about it, but it doesn't mean they can fix it. You should only pick a fight if you're willing to see it to the end and solve the underlying issue – otherwise you just make a new enemy and the issue doesn't get solved anyway. But when it comes to people, fixing the smallest flaw can be a lifelong battle. You have to learn to pick your fights,"

"That sounds like the excuses of mediocrity. If I only picked battles I could safely win, I wouldn't be who I am today," Though perhaps that was in fact the best argument against his way of life.

Thomas exchanged a silent shrug with Longbottom, and decided to say no more. In a few minutes the rest of Hogwarts' staff filled the staff room. Even the Hogwarts ghosts arrived and stood floating by the walls. No one was extremely talkative; much of the sombre mood from the morning still lingered.

"Are we all accounted for?" asked McGonagall at the head of the table.

"Yes – Sandra and Wayne are guiding the displaced families," answered the matron Hannah Longbottom.

"Very well; let us move on to discussing the first matter on our agenda," said McGonagall. Her usual stately manner was weighed down by melancholy, significantly more so than it was in the morning; it made Ethan wonder what she might have learnt in the last few hours.

"The inns at Hogsmeade are filled to capacity; and as we speak more families from other shelters are moving to Hogwarts. It is understandable – parents want to be close to their children and Hogwarts is far north from the villages that were just taken. At last count, we are currently housing fifty people in rooms in the Eastern Block. I suspect that by tomorrow, we will be housing well over a hundred,"

The Bloody Baron harrumphed aloud. "Hmph! Hogwarts is not a hotel; they already have shelters, we should tell any more that come that we have no more room,"

"We cannot simply turn them away, Baron," said McGonagall. "Though we will make it clear to the families that they should leave their children to their usual schedules; living with their peers is part of Hogwarts' educational experience, after all,"

Ethan imagined that many parents would like to pester their children when they were out of class, or demand that their children move into their rooms. In his opinion, it was definitely the right decision of McGonagall to put her foot down on it.

"But a large influx of mostly unknown guests does present a difficult problem," McGonagall swept a stern gaze down the table. "It is possible – quite likely – that there will be Knights of Walpurgis among them,"

Some faces around the table turned anxious, while others hardened gravely.

"The Knights?" gasped Trelawney. "Why will they come here?"

McGonagall addressed her reply to the whole room.

"The Knights will try to convince our guests to join their cause – to take back by force the homes that they've lost. As the Order, we have to convince them that is not the right solution,"

The staff turned to each other with the same question on their faces: 'How are we supposed to do that?'

"I suppose I could try speaking to them," said Slughorn. "But they won't be very keen to listen to the Order after just losing their homes,"

"Horace, you and I will be spending much of our time at Caelorum for the next few days," said McGonagall. "We must continue lobbying the Ministry to deescalate the war – to focus on building new villages rather than retaking them,"

"The Ministry may have no choice now, now that the Muggles have rolled out adamantine armour," said Thomas.

"Yes, but about the situation here," cut in Flitwick. "Rather than trying to persuade the displaced families, perhaps we can make an announcement requesting that they inform us if a Knight approaches them, or if they near one in the area,"

"That we will definitely do, Filius," said McGonagall. "But I'm afraid that might not be enough. Those who are approached by a Knight may not want to identify them for fear of reprisal. And those that the Knights approach will be pre-selected to be at least sympathetic to their cause,"

McGonagall looked to the end of the table. "Mr. Chen – do you have a suggestion? You do, after all, have experience with terrorists,"

All the eyes of the room turned to Ethan.

"A little," he replied. "More with their backers than their recruiters, though. Unless you forcibly isolate everyone you're lodging, you can't stop the Knights from talking to them, and likely getting a few donors or recruits. What you can do though, is identify those Knights, and track them to their base of operations. At least, that's what you have in mind, isn't it?"

McGonagall nodded. "While the Knights are in our territory, I believe we should take the opportunity to observe them, and uncover as much information as we can about their operations. How do you believe we should go about that, Mr. Chen?"

Like a teacher with a shy student, she was trying to involve Ethan in the conversation. He found it more than a little annoying.

"Well, to get the best information possible, I would place someone undercover as a refugee, and have him join the Knights,"

"Technically, they are not refugees," spoke the Ravenclaw house ghost, a beautiful, dark-haired woman known as the Grey Lady. "A refugee is one who has been forced to flee their home country to escape war or persecution,"

"Under that definition, I would be a refugee," said Ethan.

"No," said the Grey Lady with cold aloofness. "You are a fugitive,"

Another defender of righteousness that couldn't stand his existence. Ethan sneered.

"You want to call them 'displaced families', go ahead. I'm sure it means a lot to them that you're getting the term right,"

The Grey Lady glared icily at him. "Impudent child. Do you know who you are talking to?"

"So far, I've got 'stuck-up, pedantic ghost woman',"

The Bloody Baron, who floated across the room from the Grey Lady, guffawed heartily. The Grey Lady looked livid at the Baron; her silver translucent body turned greyer and her hair started to rise.

"That will be enough, Mr. Chen; please restrict your comments to the discussion at hand," declared McGonagall. The Baron dared the Grey Lady to start something with a smirk, but she simmered down and settled for simply throwing both him and Ethan a murderous look.

"You said we should have someone infiltrate the Knights," McGonagall continued. "While I agree that would be our strongest option, I'm afraid we don't have the means to carry it out,"

"What do you mean?" asked Ethan.

McGonagall shifted her gaze to Mr. Longbottom. "Neville, you were once an Auror of the Counter-Terrorism Division – perhaps you can explain it better than I can,"

Mr. Longbottom cringed; whether it was due to McGonagall's reminder of his past, or having to address the room, Ethan couldn't tell. Ethan had some difficulty imagining the mild-mannered Longbottom in the darkest, most dangerous job in the wizarding world – at least, performing it effectively, which might explain why he was no longer with them.

"Well…the Knights weren't organized yet when I was an Auror…but what I've heard is that they're very organized, and wise to all possible ways of surveying them. Their recruiters carry magic and secrecy detectors on them and scan anyone they let into their ranks. Probably the only way to infiltrate them is with someone with very strong Occlumency and permanent Transfiguration surgery,"

"Wait a minute – should we even be attempting to do this?" said Slughorn. "Shouldn't we leave an operation like this to the Auror Office?"

McGonagall shook her head.

"I have spoken to Mr. Potter this afternoon about staging a sting operation in our school – unfortunately, he does not believe a short term operation is likely to lead to actionable intelligence, and does not have any Aurors to spare for a longer, deep cover mission,"

That made sense to Ethan – the Aurors were possibly already following on more promising leads, and didn't have the manpower to stake out several refugee camps for the chance of catching a few useless Knight grunts. And a real deep cover agent would need months, if not years, to get in deep enough to for some worthwhile intelligence. No one in the staff room looked like they would be capable of pulling such a thing off.

"So – infiltrating the Knights is not an option, short term or long term," said Ethan. "What about surveillance, then?"

McGonagall nodded. "Yes; Hogwarts is monitored by an Oculus Array that can identify the name and position of all persons within it. Access to its information is restricted only to the Headmaster and during emergencies, but I will temporarily rescind those restrictions so that we may watch for suspicious movements that may belong to the Knights. There are also Dark Detectors stored in the Room of Requirement that are capable of detecting deception and secrecy – the Knights will likely pass under them due to Occlumency, but they can still be useful for questioning the displaced families,"

McGonagall faced Ethan squarely. "Mr. Chen. I would like to appoint you in charge of our surveillance operations on the displaced families and potential Knights at Hogwarts. Is that agreeable with you?"

Like a field of blooming horrified flowers, every professor at the table dropped their jaws in shock.

"Minerva – are you serious?" muttered Flitwick. "That is a lot of power to put in his hands,"

"You can't do this," exclaimed the Grey Lady. "He's just a child,"

"I think we are all well aware by now that Mr. Chen's intellectual capabilities far exceed that of an ordinary child," McGonagall's declaration silenced the murmuring crowd. "Mr. Chen, you may enlist the aid of the school house-elves or any member of the Order in your effort to uncover as much information on the Knights as possible. I will also give you the location of the Room of Requirement, and you may make use of its resource however you require. Will you accept this task?"

Ethan closed his eyes and thought hard about it. The entire room stared at him, waiting for Ethan reply, but he was in no rush to make his decision. After his chat with Ginevra Potter, he thought a great deal about his current predicament. He took stock of just how messed up his life currently was, reassessed his priorities, and plotted his best next course of action. And it led him to a decision that he supposed now was a good a time as any to announce.

"…Why should I?" Ethan said darkly.

A wave of confusion travelled down the table, and churned into an assorted display of incredulity, concern and indignation.

"'Why should you'?" echoed the Grey Lady haughtily. "Because the Knights are murderous terrorists. They stoke fear and anger among wizards with their vile speech; they slaughter innocent Muggle civilians; they are most likely the ones responsible for the horrible acts that started the war in Britain – is that not reason enough?"

Ethan only stared at the wall in front of him as he spoke coldly.

"And why should I care about that?"

Several pairs of eyes flew open with alarm. Ethan didn't care to check how McGonagall reacted.

"Ethan," Professor Felenthir leant over the table and spoke to him delicately. "I am Veela; right now the war does not affect me either, but I still do what I can for the Order – speaking to the Veela noble families that care to hear me. What I tell them is that if we don't end this war, we will all suffer gravely. People are losing their lives all over the world, and stopping the Knights is crucial to ending the fear and hate that grips both sides,"

If anyone thought they could persuade Ethan to anything with a heartfelt plea, they severely underestimated the depth of his callousness.

"I only care about one thing, and that is getting out of this damned school," said Ethan, his voice hard as stone. "I spoke to Mrs. Potter this afternoon, and she told me that the Cabal has refused to allow Mr. Potter use of their smuggling carts. So currently Mr. Potter is unable to arrange my escape from this hellhole. That means, if I am to get out of here, I need someone else to book a spot on a smuggling cart,"

McGonagall's voice came to him soft and subdued. "I see. So you want one of us to book a smuggling cart instead,"

"Ethan," Slughorn started diplomatically. "We understand that you've had a difficult time here, but the Headmistress has remedied that by making you a professor. We've done all we can to make your life here as comfortable as possible –"

"Shut up, Slughorn," snapped Ethan, and he whipped a cutting glare across the table. "You people are holding me prisoner in this school – don't try to pretend it's anything else. It may be a gilded cage, but at least the Ministry never needed me to save their pathetic jobs from a half-assed takeover. And now you want me to do your spying for you? This 'Order of the Phoenix' is so incompetent, it's almost like you're making an effort of it to gain my sympathy. You want me to help you root out the Knights? Then I want something in return – I want out of this godforsaken school,"

In the crushing silence that followed, Ethan slowly became aware of the anger pounding in his chest; discreetly he slowed his breath and calmed himself. The statements he wanted to make had come out a lot angrier than he intended them to. His anger continued to rattle inside him, but it was not the righteous anger of being imprisoned by the Order. No; when he looked within on his own anger, he saw only a childish, petulant tantrum thrown at his own powerlessness, at the futility of his efforts, at his own foolish audacity to hope. There was no negotiating advantage to losing his temper, not in this particular position; it sickened Ethan that he had just exposed so much weakness to his captors. It seemed he still had a long way to go to fully mastering his weaker self.

"Hagrid; have you had any luck with your task?" McGonagall asked softly.

Professor Hagrid, who was large enough to take two seats at the table, stirred out his momentary shock.

"Wha – Oh, yes. Well, I'm still lookin' fer for a mithril shirt an' adamantine panels – but I think there just ain't any more in the black market," He replied in his gruff voice and shook his great bearded face glumly.

"I see," said McGonagall. "Ethan, your name is pinned in the Ministry's Oculus Map – the Ministry is capable of tracking your movements across the entire U.K. Presently, not even the Cabal's Floo network has a connection to the U.S. To enable you to return to Muggle territory, Hagrid has been searching for the means to set up a blind zone for you in London, as well as a mithril shirt or cloak so that you may travel freely. Unfortunately, right now we have yet to secure the artefacts we need,"

"You already have all you need to let me go," Ethan said darkly.

If the Order only wanted to let Ethan go, a mithril shirt or cloak was enough; they could just drop him off at London and let him take the first flight back to New York. And Harry Potter already had the equivalent of a mithril cloak in his Cloak of Invisibility. The fact that they were trying to set up a blind zone in London revealed their true intention; they wanted to move him to a different prison where he would have access to the tools he needed to help Hermione Weasley.

"I…" McGonagall looked pained as she considered her next words. "…Even if you should return to New York, you would still be in grave danger. You are a wanted fugitive, and a known informant to the Ministry of Magic; you will be hunted by both Muggle law enforcement and their counter-magic agencies. And there is also Nowles Lowther, who will seek to kill you to protect the secrets locked in your mind. I…I cannot in good conscience let you go if it is only to leave you to certain death,"

Excuses. They did not care about what he wanted. One way or another, all they wanted from him was his skills.

"New York City is my turf. I can fend for myself,"

"The group you used to belong to – the Marauders – is disbanded, according to the personal history that you wrote to me. You have no allies outside. It is suicide. We will let you go someday, but not now. It is far too risky,"

There was some hesitancy about McGonagall, or possibly guilt, a hint of something she thought but wasn't sharing.

"I have a plan to lay low once I'm in New York. I'm not going to share it with you, but it is not suicide,"

Ethan's move was dangerous; the Order wanted to have Ethan work for them willingly, and take him to London to help Hermione Weasley. He had to watch his words, he had to refrain from another outburst. As long as he seemed able to be reasoned with, they would not deem him useless and toss him out to Lowther's mercy. If they eventually let him go, it would only be when the war ends. Which could take years. It may not be the safest move, but Ethan no longer cared; he was tired of being a prisoner, tired of watching his back for wizards, and tired of constantly having to plumb the depths of his cunning just to stay alive.

Ethan spoke calmly and firmly, as he had originally intended to make his stance. "This is an ultimatum: if you don't return me to NYC right now, which you are perfectly capable of doing, I will never work for the Order willingly. I won't help the Order as a prisoner. You can try and dominate me, but you won't get half the mileage you need out of me to see any results. When I am free again, I will lend my assistance to Hermione Weasley – on my terms. I will not have it any other way,"

Slowly, arduously, like it physically pained her to do, McGonagall shook her head.

"I'm sorry. But I cannot let you go, Ethan,"

In the end, morality was only a luxury of peacetime. In war, there is no good and evil; there is only power, and those that need it to survive.

"You reveal yourself at last. You're no better than the Ministry. Go ahead and dominate me to work for you – but save us both the annoyance and drop the noble pretence,"

They wouldn't dominate Ethan now, while they couldn't yet make use of his hacking expertise. While they waited to build their blind zone, he could break out of the Imperius Curse and kill himself. But once they had their blind zone in London, they would no longer need his wilful cooperation. They could overpower his resistance to _Imperius_ by regularly reinforcing the spell.

McGonagall nodded, also with great pain. "I understand. Neville – will you take charge of the surveillance operation?"

Mr. Longbottom half-opened his mouth, about to voice an objection or suggest someone else, but then decided against it. "Yes," he replied.

"I suppose this means you no longer wish to be a part of the Order," stated the Bloody Baron, staring imperiously down on Ethan. "And this is a meeting only for Order members. If your only goal is to leave us, then we can no longer allow you to be privy to our discussions,"

"Baron, I will decide whether or not Mr. Chen is allowed a seat at our discussions," A rising temper now crept into McGonagall's stern voice. "If anyone at this meeting has an objection or concern they wish to make, I highly suggest that they express themselves in a civil and courteous manner, one that befits the maturity expected of them,"

"No, it's fine. I've had enough of this meeting,"

From around the room Ethan caught a number of begrudging looks towards their Headmistress. He sensed that the Order was urgently in need of another discussion: a debate on how much he was truly worth to them, especially in light of who he was and the risks involved in keeping him. He stood up, filled with ennui from head to toe, and took one last look around the table.

"Good luck with your war," Ethan turned for the doors and left, feeling only a void in his heart where he used to have a speck of concern for his own fate.


	18. Chapter 18 - Paradigm

Chapter 18 – Paradigm

Hermione brought a portable radio with her when she came to London, modified to receive signals from the Wizarding Wireless Network and other wizarding radio stations. When she tuned into the WWN at six in the morning, the first thing she learnt was that she had just slept through the largest ever Muggle offensive on wizard villages in Britain, and it had left over six hundred wizards bereft of their homes in a single night.

The dizzying horror of the news made it harder for her to focus on her upcoming debate hosted by the BBC. She called Julia and a few other members of the Order to discuss their public response to the attacks. She then got dressed in what she hoped was her blandest, most inoffensive outfit; a grey tweed suit and pencil skirt. Following that, she sat down with Ron for a quick breakfast. She was halfway through her beans and toast when there came a knock on the door.

"Mr. Blake," said Ron upon opening the door. "What can we do for you?"

"Morning, Mr. Weasley. May I come in?"

Ron let John Blake into the suite; Blake strode to Hermione at the dining table and helped himself to a seat across from her.

"I see that you are both in a dire mood," said Blake, noticing that Hermione had not stood up or greeted him. "I take it then that you've heard of the Allied offensive last night. However, you have to head to the BBC soon, so we won't have the time to discuss that. I have something else for you right now – both good and bad news,"

Ron sat down beside Hermione, looking incensed. "You're just going to gloss over displacing six hundred people last night?"

"My agency did not participate in the operation last night, nor did we have any input on its proceedings," Blake replied unperturbed.

Hermione placed a hand over Ron's. "We still want to discuss it, but at a later time. You said you had news?"

Blake nodded. "Yes. We have received the Ministry officers that Mr. Harry Potter claims were dominated as part of the conspiracy to frame the Ministry,"

Hermione felt a twisting constriction in her heart; so Harry and Cadogan did it after all – they surrendered their own people for a chance at negotiation.

"The original agreement was to keep the officers and question them until we were satisfied," continued Blake. "However, Minister Cadogan, Head of Intelligence Nowles Lowther, and the contingent of Spooks which accompanied them, demanded to be present during the questioning, and took the officers back at the end of last evening,"

Hermione and Ron both sat stunned. "He did?" Hermione gasped. At the back of her mind she noted that Cadogan had decided to inform Lowther about Harry's investigation. She wasn't yet sure of the wisdom of that decision.

"Yes. They followed us to one of our black sites and watched over as we questioned the officers on their role in framing the Ministry. The officers repeated the details which we heard from Mr. Potter,"

Hermione could only imagine how tense that situation must have been for all parties; Cadogan and Lowther must have brought enough Spooks to fight their way out of the black site if they had to, but no doubt MI7 would have put up a very deadly fight if it had come to that.

"We used goblin-crafted memory extraction artefacts on the officers and viewed them via a Pensieve. We determined with reasonable confidence that the officers were being truthful in their testimony. However, the Minister forbade us from using enchantment-dispelling techniques to verify if their memories weren't modified by enchantment,"

"Enchantment-dispelling techniques?" said Ron testily. "You mean brain-spiking or frying their brains out? Obviously he couldn't allow that. Those techniques are illegal by Ministry law,"

"We would have only sought to apply a mild electroshock treatment," replied Blake, maintaining his butler-esque politesse. "The British government is not keen on committing murder no matter the circumstances,"

Hermione held her voice steady and neutral. "If the Ministry wanted to hide memory modification, dispelling techniques wouldn't uncover them; they would use spells that perform permanent brain alteration rather than enchantment. So there was no reason to use such techniques at any level,"

"Yes, but because we were not allowed to use dispelling techniques, we were unable to positively verify the memories in any case of potential memory modification. So I'm afraid the British government cannot accept them as evidence,"

"Are you kidding me?" cried Ron. "You think Harry and the Ministry set up the dominated officers? You can't make this shite up! It's too crazy to be fake!"

Blake briefly took off his black-rimmed glasses and wiped them on the flap of his suit. He looked up at them sharply; Hermione felt a suspicion that the man didn't need his glasses at all.

"I have to agree. So while the British government will not officially accept this evidence, the Prime Minister will be willing to hear Mrs. Weasley this afternoon for her thoughts on this alleged conspiracy, and what she believes man- and wizardkind can do to uncover it,"

Hermione's breath caught in her throat. She had spoken to ministry departments, civil servants and parliament members, but not yet anyone from the Prime Minister's Office. And it sounded like they were willing to discuss cooperation with the Ministry. For several months Hermione felt that she had hit a wall in trying to effect any change, but now it fuelled her to hope that she was making progress again.

Blake put his glasses back on. "It was an egregious lack of communication that prevented us from uncovering this conspiracy until now…hopefully we can make up for lost time and get to the bottom of this mystery," He stood up and gave Hermione and Ron a courteous nod.

"Now, I shall leave you to get ready for your debate. I shall personally take part in your security detail today, and deliver you to the Broadcasting House as well 10 Downing Street right after. Best of luck," Blake promptly turned and left the suite.

Hermione turned to Ron. "What did you think you were doing?" She reproached him. "Being so rude to Mr. Blake?" Granted, they had both just been hit with devastating news, but she hoped the importance of their relationship to the leader of MI7 would impose more self-control on her husband.

Ron reared back confusedly. "I thought I was supposed to do that? Say the 'undiplomatic' things you can't say?"

"Yes, but you were really pushing it back there. Please tone it down while we're at the BBC – not every Muggle is as nice as Mr. Blake,"

Ron raised a sceptical brow. "Nice? That bloke? He's shadier than a hag's day care service. He looks far too young to be leader of a whole spy agency. And d'you think 'John Blake' is his real name?"

"Obviously not, but he is our friendliest contact in the government thus far, and we need his support,"

Hermione and Ron finished their breakfast and left the suite. Waiting for them outside the door was an MI7 agent; they surrendered their wands to him and he led them out of the hotel and into an armoured limousine waiting outside. Blake was casually browsing his phone in one of the back seats.

Once Hermione and Ron entered the limo, it set off for the BBC Broadcasting House. As Blake made several taps on his phone and showed the screen to Hermione, who sat beside him.

"Your website is back up again," Blake remarked.

On the screen was the website of the Order of the Phoenix. Hermione had requested her webmaster to keep to the clean, unostentatious style of modern website design. On the front page was an interview article, conducted by an Order volunteer with a wizard currently held at the Enfield internment camp. Also featured on the front page were links to information about magic and wizard society, forums for discussion, directions on how to volunteer and donate, and of course, the Order's social media accounts.

"Oh finally, thank goodness," Hermione gushed. For the last two days, the Order of the Phoenix's website had been completely inaccessible.

"Indeed," said Blake. "Your web host had a difficult time restoring the site despite being prepared for an attack. I've been told that this should be the largest DDoS attack you've suffered yet,"

Hermione was forced to learn much about distributed denial-of-service attacks since the launch of the Order of the Phoenix website. To put the concept very simply, a DDoS attack was an attempt to slow or halt a system by flooding it with traffic from multiple computers. She was quite fascinated with what she read about the extraordinarily complex world of cyberattacks and cybersecurity; at a younger age, in a more carefree time, she would have loved to delve into and slowly map out that wilderness of knowledge. But at the present, she just had too many other priorities to handle.

"You've been told? By whom?" Hermione pointedly asked Blake.

"Ah – by GCHQ, who are currently investigating the attack,"

'GCHQ' was the Government Communications Headquarters, the Muggle government agency that was responsible for providing cybersecurity and cyber-intelligence to the United Kingdom. "So you _are_ monitoring the Order," Hermione exclaimed.

"Not MI7 – GCHQ," Blake clarified, as he put away his phone. "And they have thus far thwarted three separate attempts to plant remote administration tools into your organization's network,"

"Have you been listening to my communications with the Ministry?" Hermione demanded.

"No, but not from a lack of trying – the end-to-end encryption that you're using can't be broken from the outside. GCHQ has twice managed to plant malware into your personal computer, however they was promptly removed both times by – they suspect – a dominated hacker from the Ministry. So it is actually the Ministry that has control of your computer. That said, GCHQ _does_ have root access to the rest of the Order's network, namely your website's servers and office network of your volunteers,"

Ron tapped Hermione's shoulder. "What did he just say? Your computer's been hacked?"

Hermione actually already knew that; Lowther had informed her that her computer would be monitored by his office when she first connected to the Ministry's network. Hermione was upset at first – though now it has evidently proven for the better.

"So what does GCHQ intend to do with control over the Order's network?" She tried to keep her tone calm as she asked; getting testy here would only show weakness.

"Nothing to jeopardize the Order's operations, if that is your concern," said Blake. "My colleagues at the Doughnut are monitoring your network as part of their ongoing investigation into who _is_ attempting to jeopardize the Order. In the previous DDoS attacks on your website, with data provided by your web host and various involved ISPs, GCHQ has been able to trace and identify a number of the botnet herders responsible. They were a mix of vigilantes with an online record of anti-wizard sentiment, and hired black hats – hackers who undermine computer systems illegally for malice or personal gain. In addition to disrupting traffic to your site, the DDoS attacks were a smokescreen to cover more sophisticated attempts to gain control and surveillance over your organization,"

"It's the Defenders of Humanity behind the attacks, innit?" said Ron. "Our Order members are getting regular death threats from them and attempts to hack their personal devices,"

"The DoH categorically denies sending any death threats or engaging in any computer crime. But yes, some of the hackers we identified are in contact with the DoH," Blake's tone then sunk a notch in graveness. "You remember, Mrs. Weasley, that you terminated your contract with your last two web hosts after they aided unknown hackers in compromising the Order's network. They claimed to have been coerced into doing so by blackmail or significant damage to their firm's network. This is not usually the modus operandi of youthful hacktivists or hate groups; I believe this is a highly-organized and well-funded campaign to undermine the goals of the Order. GCHQ and I are not certain if the DoH is the only backer behind the attacks,"

"Have you arrested any of the hackers you found?" Ron questioned.

"No, we haven't,"

"Why not?" said Hermione.

"GCHQ is currently monitoring their online activity in hopes of identifying their employer. Also, they have not received any orders to do so. Do keep in mind that the British government is still unconvinced of the alleged frame-up of the Ministry, or the Order's arguments for wizards retaining their wands. If I could, I would like to commit MI7's resources to aid in uncovering the hackers' employers, but my agency is beholden to the directions of the Prime Minister as well,"

"I understand," Hermione replied. So that was possibly one thing to discuss when she met Prime Minister later in the day.

Blake momentarily glanced out the window to the streets of London; they were passing through Westminster, nearing the BBC Broadcasting House in a few minutes.

"The advanced persistent threat on your organization is still ongoing despite three failed attempts that would have long deterred the average hacktivist. Your volunteers in the Order of the Phoenix are still under great threat,"

"I've instructed all members of the Order on basic information security awareness," said Hermione. "I don't know what more I can do though,"

"Nothing more I'm afraid. But your volunteers also pose a great threat _to_ the Order – some of your staff may have been compromised, or inserted themselves into your organization with the intention to survey and sabotage from the beginning. In light of the information that Mr. Potter has uncovered, I think it should be prudent to assume that we are dealing with a highly intelligent and calculating enemy. No degree of paranoia is unwarranted. I hope you will keep this mind going forward, especially as you persuade more of the public to your side. Our foes are very likely to escalate their attempts to defeat you,"

What she had learnt from Harry was terribly unnerving, but Hermione was not going to buckle from her own fear: she was a Gryffindor.

"Thank you for sharing so much with us, Mr. Blake,"

"No problem, Mrs. Weasley, but if you don't mind, please refrain from confronting GCHQ about their infiltration into your network – at least for now. We did not have this conversation,"

"I understand," She wasn't pleased about GCHQ having an open window into all of the Order's activities, but at least they were keeping out other hackers. Still, Hermione made a mental note to later inform all her Order staff to start backing up data and backing up the back-ups – in case the British government did eventually decide to subvert the Order's activities.

The armoured limousine came to a stop. The three of them stepped out before the historic BBC Broadcasting House, headquarters of the world's oldest and largest national broadcasting organization. The moment they did, a tide of journalists from seemingly out of nowhere closed in from all angles.

"Mrs. Weasley – have you heard of the Allied forces' recapture of four wizard-occupied villages last night?" Shouted one reporter among several others at once, while they all held microphones to her face.

"Mr. Blake – Several MPs are calling for your indictment for concealing the existence of magic from parliament and the public. Your response?"

"I will take questions from the press after the debate," said Blake smoothly. "If you'll excuse us, we'll running tight on schedule,"

Blake took the lead pushing through the crowd and escorting Ron and Hermione into the Broadcasting House. A couple of black-suited MI7 agents were already at the front doors, and two more agents fell in behind Ron and Hermione; they were as much security for them as they were against them.

They passed through the polished entrance lobby and entered the BBC's humming newsroom. An enormous hall cluttered with numerous desks, each cluttered with numerous monitors, attended by numerous reporters working at brisk speed. In the BBC Broadcasting House, thousands upon thousands of people worked in seamless coordination every day to deliver breaking news across the globe. The sheer scale of Muggle enterprise never ceased to awe Hermione, even though she was born into a Muggle family. She would have liked to take a tour of the BBC building, learn of the company's operations and its long history…but of course her life was no longer her own to spend as she pleased.

They turned away from the newsroom and took a lift, went down several hallways, and entered into a studio green room: a calming lounge area for guests and performers to wait before going onstage. Inside sitting and conversing in sofa chairs were several people.

As Blake, Ron and Hermione entered, the first to stand up to greet them was one of the men she was to face in the debate.

"Ah – Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Blake. It's a pleasure to meet you," Cyril Alexander shook each of their hands with a smouldering smile. The Member of Parliament of Holborn and St Pancras was a fair-featured, dreamily handsome man in his forties. He sported a short crop of prematurely white hair – white as snow – and enchanting hazel eyes. He was the rising star of the Labour Party, with roaring, celebrity-like adoration for him across the political spectrum, especially among the youth.

"Likewise, Mr. Alexander," said Hermione, as she shook his hand.

"Hermione," said Julia, coming up to her after Alexander. "We've released our statement condemning the assault. Hansen and Noah are at Enfield now to learn the names of those who were captured,"

Julia Fields was a rather dowdy but kind-looking woman with half-rimmed glasses and long bobbed hair. She called to mind the sort of aunt that would knit a sweater for her cat. Julia was Hermione's Director of Operations for the Order of the Phoenix, essentially second-in-command and the Muggle face of the Order. With her freedom of movement, Julia was able to mobilize the staff of the Order far better than Hermione could, and Hermione was eternally grateful to her for building up the organization with an experience and efficiency that she sorely lacked.

"Yes – thank you, Julia," Hermione nodded.

Julia nodded back and pushed up her slipping glasses. "Also, they had a message from George. He says good luck,"

"Oh. Thanks again," said Hermione.

George Weasley, Ron's brother and Hermione's brother-in-law, had been detained at the Enfield camp with his family for nearly a year ever since they were captured by British forces. He gave the Order regular intelligence on the ongoings at the camp and cracked off-colour jokes like how freedom was a small price to pay for free food, free lodging, and all the time in the world to neglect exercise. He said that despite the bland food and the stuffy bunks they slept in, the most inhumane thing about the camp was that they were making wizards even lazier than they already were.

"Ah, finally here, Weasleys? What was the delay?"

The other man that Hermione, with Julia, would debate today was Fragarok the Mad-Wealthy, who remained smirking up at them from his couch. It gave them all a better perspective from which to converse with him as the top his head would only reach their hips if he were standing next to them. Fragarok was a goblin with salt-and-pepper mutton chops under his bald head. His goblin's pointed ears and sharp nose projected stiffly from his wrinkly visage, and larger pupils relative to humans made his eyes beady black.

"Purely my fault, Fragarok," said Blake in a conciliatory bow. "Security procedures – to ensure we had a safe journey,"

Fragarok's voice was a harsh, throaty snarl. "Oh, it's not me who minds – I'm not the one running this show," He pointed a spindly finger to the last man in the room to stand: a slightly older gentleman in thick glasses and heavy jowls.

Kenneth Hardwin, host and moderator of the debate show they were all about to attend, looked nervous in approaching Hermione and Ron. She was familiar with the reason why: even with prior assurance that they would be without their wands, many Muggles were still afraid they could have something up their sleeve.

Hermione extended her hand for a shake. "Mr. Hardwin – nice to meet you,"

A hesitant smile cracked in his lips as he shook her hand and Ron's. "Yes. It's err, nice to meet you, too,"

Something she had reminded herself of as she mentally prepared for the debate was that she absolutely had to get off on the right foot with the host of the show. Yet after countless instances of verbal fumbling with Muggle public figures, making the right first impression was still an art that eluded her.

"I'm, err, a big fan of the debates you host here," Hermione told Hardwin.

"You are?" Hardwin said in surprise.

"Yes. I think it's a wonderful platform for intellectual discourse and you do a great job moderating it, keeping it fair and balanced," she said in a bit of a rambling fashion.

Alexander flashed an easy smile full of immaculate teeth. "That's glowing praise, Mrs. Weasley. You watch the Paradigm Debates often?"

Hermione faltered for a fraction of a second before replying. "Yes, of course," Admittedly, she had never watched the show before until she was invited to it. She then watched several debates in a row as part of her preparation.

Fragarok gave her a smile as well, full of small, pointed teeth. All goblins had pointed teeth, but Hermione felt Fragarok to have a particularly maniacal full-toothed grin, like a shark admiring the death throes of its prey.

"Come now, Weasley, witches don't follow human television. If you want to butter someone up, you have to be more subtle than that,"

"Fragarok, surely you don't mean to imply that Mrs. Weasley is lying?" said Alexander diplomatically. "I see no reason to assume sycophancy where sincere praise will suffice. What do you think, Ken?"

"Uh, it's alright," Hardwin responded uncertainly. "It doesn't matter to me either way,"

"I assure you, Mr. Hardwin, my appreciation for your show is completely genuine," Hermione said anxiously. "I enjoyed the last debate you hosted, on how people should react to the government once aiding in maintaining the secrecy of magic. You really –"

Alexander injected her. "Oh, I remember that one. I believe the exact motion of the last debate was: the British government should be held accountable for concealing the existence of magic and magickind. The audience voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion if I recall correctly," He turned his attention to Blake. "Mr. Blake, did you catch the last debate?"

Blake replied courteously. "No, I don't really watch television anymore. But I have heard of your numerous speeches and press comments of the same sentiment. I only ask this for clarification, but exactly how many individuals do you intend to have indicted over the secrecy of magic?"

"I don't relish what I have to do about this issue, but the people of Britain deserve to hold their government responsible for keeping monumental secrets from them," said Alexander. "It is a moral transgression to have our taxpayers fund a government agency that for over half a century, they didn't even know existed," His genteel tone shifted almost imperceptibly.

"The British government kept the secrecy of magic because wizardkind requested them to do so," said Hermione.

"That is irrelevant," said Alexander. He took a single step towards Blake; both of them looked dead into each other with intense auras of tranquil politeness.

"Institutionalized deception of the people is a crime that demands justice by rule of law. I promise I will do everything in my power to have you, our dear Prime Minister, and all who have abided this conspiracy face the deserved consequences for your betrayal of the public's trust. If I have my way, I will have you all impeached, indicted, and tried in court. But I'll settle for a vote of no confidence if I have to. Either way, parliament will be dissolved and rebuilt to reflect the wishes of the people,"

Blake remained utterly unperturbed. "That sounds like an arduous path ahead of you. Break a leg, Mr. Alexander,"

Alexander curled a light smile and stepped back. "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, I think you two should see the studio manager, who will get you sorted for our upcoming contest," he said in the most disarmingly helpful of tones.

Hardwin stirred out of his uneasy daze. "Ah, right. Come with me – I'll take you to her and show you around the studio,"

In an awkward silence, Hermione, Ron and Blake left with Hardwin out of the green room and onto the studio. There, amidst the bustle of crew preparing for the show, they met with the studio manager, who showed Ron and Blake to their audience seats and sent Hermione to the make-up room. However, before she left, Ron took her to a quiet side of the studio for a little pep talk.

"So how are you feeling, dear? Ready to knock 'em dead?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione wheezed. "I've got pixies in my stomach. I feel like those two are going to talk circles around me. They already did a number on me just now,"

Ron responded as he was wont to in the face of pressure; with flippant disregard to any disparaging reality. "Oh, no doubt they're a pair of glib little wankers, but there's no way they prepared half as much as you have for this. You're the brightest witch of the age, remember? You have this nailed on the logical side. Just remember to stick to your arguments and don't get distracted by their attacks,"

Ron's advice returned some clarity to her buzzing mind. "You're right. Thanks Ron,"

Hermione sunk into Ron's arms for a deep hug. Ron patted her hair gently. "You'll be great. This is the kind of battle you're made for,"

Hermione pulled back from her husband and took in his reassuring smile. It was warm, wide and a little goofy, just the way she liked it. Slowly she parted from him and made her way to the make-up room, filled with quiet determination to do her very best to convert the day's audience to her cause.

Like a faint pulse in the air, Hermione could feel the anticipation of the audience. She and Julia stood in the right wing of the stage, awaiting their cue to enter. Hermione's eyes blazed up and down the notes she'd prepared for the debate. She felt like a Hogwarts students again prepping for an exam, with a familiar paranoid anxiety that never abated no matter how prepared she actually was.

The studio manager, standing next to a camera operator, spoke into her headset mic.

"And we're live in three, two, one,"

Kenneth Hardwin, standing behind a central podium on the stage, opened the show in with an energized, stentorian voice, reading his lines off a teleprompter.

"Good morning, everyone! I am Kenneth Hardwin, and welcome to the BBC's Paradigm Debates: where we invite distinguished guests to debate some of the most important questions of our current times. Today's motion is: the British government should continue to requisition all wands from wizards. As stated by Prime Minister Julian Humphrey, the current strategy of our government with regard to the ongoing conflict with wizardkind is to capture all identified wizards, collect their wands, and relocate them to the temporary internment camp at Enfield, London. This will continue until the Ministry of Magic agrees to retrieve all wands themselves. Our government believes this is a necessary measure in order to ensure our national security and facilitate an eventual assimilation of wizardkind into our society. I could go on, but I think I'll leave the discussion to our much more qualified guests. Please welcome our debaters!"

Hermione and Julia entered the stage as Alexander and Fragarok entered from the opposite wing. They took their seats at a pair of tables on either side of Hardwin's podium. The audience applauded; a great deal of them very notably cheered in Alexander's direction. A significant number of the cheerers were young adults; a large contrast to the dominantly older audiences in the debates she had binge-watched. Many of them must be people who came not for the debate, but just to see Alexander.

Hermione's thoughts buzzed; did the younger demographic mean she should be more concise in her arguments, more passionate? She had not prepared for that at all – how could she have not foreseen that? But there was no time to mentally chastise herself; she had to think about how to re-tailor her opening statement.

"First let us meet the team for the motion," said Hardwin. "I think most if not all of us here are familiar with the honourable Cyril Alexander: he is the Member of Parliament for Holborn and St Pancras. He is also currently the Labour Party's Shadow Home Secretary, and has previously worked in the Home Affairs Select Committee,"

The audience gave an ecstatic cheer.

"And next to him is Fragarok the Mad-Wealthy. A little goblin knowledge for our audience and viewers at home: goblins traditionally do not have surnames; instead they are distinguished by titles which they earn by reputation in their clan. Mr. Fragarok is the wealthiest goblin in the world, with a personal net worth of 5 billion pounds, converted from magickind currency, and that number is rapidly growing with the currency rate. He is chairman, CEO, and largest shareholder of Mad-Wealthy Holdings, a conglomerate that owns the lion's share of global goblin metals production and artefact manufacturing,"

Several people in the audience offered polite applause. Most of them gawked at Fragarok with faint disbelief, as if he might be an extremely realistic animatronic. It was certainly the closest that most of the audience had ever come to a goblin.

Hardwin gestured to Hermione's and Julia's table on his left. "Now let's meet the team against the motion. First we have Julia Fields: Director of Operations for the Order of the Phoenix. Ms. Fields was previously director of Supporter Relationship Management for the World Wildlife Fund-UK, and before that was a Trustee of the Blue Cross animal charity group,"

There was a conspicuous moment of silence in which there was no clapping for Julia.

"And finally, we have Hermione Weasley: Chairman and Chief Executive of the Order of the Phoenix. She is a witch formerly in the position of Deputy Head in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the United Kingdom Ministry of Magic,"

Several young audience members booed. With no one to quiet them, they continued for quite some time until they were satisfied.

"Uh, so our format at Paradigm Debates is as follows," said Hardwin. "Before the debate proper, our audience will cast votes on their position on the motion – for, against, or undecided – using the wireless keypads that have been distributed to all of you. Then comes the first of four rounds of the debate – in the first round, each debater will make their uninterrupted opening statements to the audience. In the next round, the debaters may make their cases while addressing the opposing side directly. Following that, the debaters will take questions from the audience. And in the final round, one debater from each side will make their uninterrupted closing statements,"

"At the end of the debate, our audience will once again cast their votes on the motion. The winner of this debate will be decided by which team has gained the most votes to their side. Once again, the motion of this debate is: the British government should continue to requisition all wands from wizards. Ladies and gentlemen, your keypads have been activated – you may cast your first votes now,"

A few hundred heads in the audience bowed down to look at the little keypads in their hands. As they keyed in their first vote, Hermione scanned the crowd for Ron; his bright red hair made him almost too easy to find, sitting in the back row beside Blake. Neither of them had a keypad, but nonetheless Ron flashed his support with a thumbs-up.

"All right, that's it – thank you all for voting quickly," said Hardwin after a minute. "Without further ado, let us start the first round; each statement will be limited to two minutes. Mr. Cyril Alexander, you may begin,"

Alexander leaned forward on his table and spoke into the microphone before him.

"Thank you, Kenneth. Ladies and gentleman, this…" He spoke with a sombre gravitas that immediately impressed itself on the audience. "…This is a debate over a question that defines the course of the rest of our history. I'm here today to argue for the motion that we need to gather all currently-owned wands from wizardkind. The current administration and I have our differences, but there is one thing we can agree on: magic is a powerful and dangerous force that must be regulated. I don't think any of us can ever forget the horrible death of the late Prime Minister Andrew Bradbury and three of his aides. Forced by mind control to take their own lives, and this is something any wizard with a wand is capable of. Nothing is sacred to the magic of wizards – they can alter your memories, bend your mind and body to their will, compromise our institutions to the highest level. As long as such powers exist unrestricted, our society is hanging on a thread,"

Alexander's voice lowered to a dire whisper; the audience hung on his every word.

"But that is not all they've done; wizard extremists regularly attack innocent people, and they can do so with complete impunity. At any moment, they can strike anywhere across Britain, rampaging across our streets until local countermagic police forces respond. And even they can be overwhelmed by the power these wizards wield. The Ministry of Magic terrorizes us as well; they routinely target our factories, power plants and oil platforms, driving up the price of gasoline, transportation and manufacturing. Our police and soldiers do their best, but they cannot defend every corner of the U.K. The power that wizards wield with wands is simply too great for us to leave in the hands of every wizard; it is the same logic we use in our strict gun control legislation, which gives the U.K. one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world. The highest priority of the British government is to ensure the security of its people, and to do that we must continue our current path to the end. We cannot allow the slightest possibility of what happened to Prime Minister Bradbury to ever happen again! All wands must be removed!"

The audience launched into a chorus of applause, the loudest of which came from the young Alexander fans. In the course of his speech, Hermione had scribbled about a dozen notes about his arguments and how to refute them. Her mind spinning, she sorted out the points that she would add to her opening statement and how exactly to word those points.

"Thank you Mr. Alexander," said Hardwin as the applause died down. "Next, speaking against the motion, we have Ms. Julia Fields – Ms. Fields, you may begin,"

With a hint of nervousness, Julia cleared her throat and spoke into her mic. "Thank you, Mr. Hardwin. The first thing I'd like to say is that I too, was traumatized by what happened to Prime Minister Bradbury and his aides. But the Ministry of Magic has emphatically denied any part in that tragedy. Instead of trying to overthrow the government of wizardkind and subjugate their people –" Julia's voice grew stronger as she continued. "– our government and armed forces should be focusing their efforts on defeating the Knights of Walpurgis. This is a group of wizard extremists who make no secret that they seek to rule over humanity. And their plan to do so is by pitting us against ordinary wizards, who only want peace as much as we do. The Knights are most likely the true culprits behind the deaths of the Prime Minister and his aides. They are the wizards who are regularly attacking our military bases, trying to infiltrate our government, and going on terrible rampages. They are our true enemy, but we cannot defeat them by alienating our best ally against them,"

Hermione could feel the air thickening, see faces souring in the crowd; many were not taking well to Julia's speech.

"A year ago, I couldn't describe the shock I felt when I heard the speech of the Russian President. Like most of the media and everyone I knew, I thought he was raving – announcing to the world that magic was real, like it was just another public address. But as battles erupted all over the world, we realized…that this was real. The Revelation of Magic has shaken the world; shattered some of our most fundamental assumptions about what we think we know about the world. Magic is still something we barely understand, but one thing I do know is that we cannot let our fear of the unknown override our morality. That is one thing about the world that hasn't changed, and it's something that will never change. It has been a year now, and I have since calmed down and realized that. Wizards are ultimately just another community; they are not inherently our enemy unless we make them so. And the same goes for magic itself. So do not take all wands from wizards, or we will create the danger that we fear,"

Julia ended her speech to tiny scattered clapping, cut short by the surrounding tension.

"That was brilliant, Julia," whispered Hermione.

"Oh, thanks," Julia heaved a sigh of relief. "Tough crowd. I think at least half of them are Alexander supporters called in from activist groups,"

"Thank you Ms. Fields," said Hardwin. "Next, our second speaker for the motion, Mr. Fragarok,"

Fragarok pulled his mic closer to him and began speaking, putting slightly less snarl in his voice than he did in the green room.

"First I must say that I am only a businessman. My views do not reflect those of the United Goblin Congress. However, all fellow goblins I know believe this conflict is a terrible state of affairs that they wish to see come to an end as soon as possible. I believe the British government has stated before that they have nothing against ordinary wizards, and want to work with wizardkind as much as possible to bring supremacist groups like the Knights to justice. But the argument to let wizards keep their wands because we don't want to alienate them – that argument ignores the crux of this issue, which is whether humanity can be safe with the way things currently stand,"

"The Knights use no special artefacts for their killing sprees. All they need is wands. Even if you defeat the Knights, as long as wizards possess the same capabilities they do now, humanity can never be safe. The Ministry of Magic perpetually struggles in dealing with dark wizard groups; the Ministry has even fallen to dark wizard control before, as I'm sure you can remember, Mrs. Weasley," Fragarok flashed his shark-teeth smile at Hermione. "So the wizard government can't even protect its own people from the power it lets them wield. Goblins are capable of spellcasting as well, but for over three centuries the Ministry of Magic forbade us from wielding wands. Why? Because we would be too powerful with them. So clearly wizards will accept that argument when it doesn't apply to themselves. And the constant threat of dark wizards like the Knights is the consequence of their hypocrisy, one that all of magickind has had to suffer,"

Hermione spotted from the audience several eyes widening at the intake of this new information. This was definitely an uphill battle; Hermione continued furiously scrawling notes against Fragarok's speech.

"We goblins live perfectly fine without wands. Our underground cities still run on magic. We make use of specialized artefacts for all our specific magical needs, the same way humans utilize technology. I see no reason why wizards can't do the same. The Revelation has changed the world for everyone, including magickind. Now that the veil of secrecy has fallen, we will all have to make concessions to live in peace in this new world. I say that wands should have been restricted long ago, and this new era is the perfect time to do it!"

The audience applauded loudly. But as loud as their applause was, it was deafened by the sound of Hermione's heart pounding in her chest. In a few moments it would be her turn to speak – to an audience of millions in the United Kingdom, and possibly millions more across the globe. She had done television interviews before, and faced severe critique of the Order's mission. But this debate was her first chance to take the same level of critique to her opponents, and show the rightness of her mission in clear, undeniable contrast. It was absolutely crucial that she win this contest.

"Thank you Mr. Fragarok," said Hardwin. "And finally, our second speaker against the motion, Hermione Weasley,"

"Thank you, Mr. Hardwin," said Hermione, before she turned to Fragarok.

"Fragarok, it is my deep regret that wizardkind has not been fair to the goblin community. During my time in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, I worked hard for improving goblin rights, including their right to possess wands. You say that goblin society manages fine without wands, but I believe that doesn't need to be the case. And I know there are members of the United Goblin Congress that would agree, as they have demanded the right to own wands for centuries. And the reasons why I believe that goblins should own wands are the same reasons why I believe wizards should continue to own them,"

Hermione glanced briefly at the clock on her table that helped to keep the time she had left. She then looked up to face the audience; they all watched her with scrutinizing intensity like a hundred lasers. She actually felt like she was being microwaved under her woollen suit. But she pressed onward.

"I disagree with Mr. Alexander's comparison of wands to firearms. Wands are much more than a weapon. They are a tool that wizards use in every aspect of their daily lives. We use them to light our homes, to clean our dishes, to travel to work and to come home to our loved ones. They are as indispensable to us as cell phones are to humans. But a wizard's wand is more than a tool of convenience; it is an extension of ourselves – the wand chooses the wizard, and each wand's makeup and temperament is uniquely suited to its owner. If the British government insists on taking that from us…wizardkind will resist. We understand the dangers that wands and magic possess – that is why our society has its own government and law enforcement, which tirelessly works to defend us from those who would abuse magic to harm others. At this very moment, the Ministry's Department of Magical Law Enforcement is on high alert for Knight activity, and they are ready to intercept them at a moment's notice to defend both humans and magickind. Yes, our society takes a great risk in allowing every wizard to possess a wand, but do humans not take the same risks in their use of technology? Magic is dangerous, but it is also a beautiful and wondrous force, and if given the chance, it can do so much unimaginable good for all of us. So I implore you, not just as a witch, but as a person – please understand us and let us keep our wands,"

To her surprise, Hermione heard applause as she leant back from her mic. It was much softer and less enthusiastic than Alexander's applause, just a little less than a third of the audience. As the clapping died down, she spotted much murmuring among them, people turning to each other to discuss something.

"Thank you Mrs. Weasley," said Hardwin. "Well, that was a passionate first round," He said to the audience eagerly. "Both sides already addressing each other's arguments in their opening statements. We're going to have more of that in the next round. Now, the format for this round is as follows: each debater will have one minute and fifteen seconds to present their arguments, but this time the opposing side may interject with a point of information by raising their hand or calling out 'on that point'; the speaker may choose to accept or decline the point of information. If accepted, the opposing side has thirty seconds to offer a point or rebuttal to the current speech,"

As Hardwin spoke, Hermione looked to the back of the audience for Ron; he threw a thumbs up into the air as their eyes met. But something was off; John Blake was no longer seated next to him – he was at the back of the audience, with his cell phone pressed to his ear. Hermione spotted something else peculiar; the studio manager had taken off her headset, walked to the side of the studio, and was speaking very testily into her phone. At the corner of her vision, Hermione saw that Alexander had noticed the studio manager as well and made a subtle smile.

"Once both sides have made their speech, we move on to the third round," said Hardwin, before gesturing to the Alexander's and Fragarok's table. "Proposition team, either one of you may begin,"

Fragarok activated his mic.

"Mrs. Weasley, the first thing I'd like to say is that neither the goblin community nor the British government intends to undermine the livelihood of wizards. Frankly, I think you have misrepresented the government's position with regard to this motion. We will not leave wizards unable to care for their daily needs; for each wand that the government retrieves, they will grant a new wand in return. These new wands, developed by my artefact manufacturing company, are in the final phase of testing and can soon be distributed to all wizards within our reach. These wands are designed to fulfil all the standard magical needs of regular wands, but they are also safe; they are unable to cast any spells that could be used for harmful or nefarious purposes. I've illustrated all the details about them in my last interview with the BBC –"

Hermione raised her hand. Fragarok considered for a moment, then turned his sharp gaze to her.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley?"

"I watched your interview," said Hermione. Fragarok was a regular news contributor for the BBC, providing commentary on goblin and magic-related affairs. "But it was awfully vague on details about these new 'wands'. But I've learnt much about them by contacting your company. They can't cast anything but the spells you've enchanted them with. Just rigid housekeeping spells with low power and no flexibility; no Apparition, no general telekinesis, and they're not even made of wand wood – you can hardly call them wands at all. They're just artefacts with a few enchantments applied to them,"

"They told you?" spat Fragarok. "Why would they – ah, of course." He simmered down quickly. "You called them posing as a journalist, I'm guessing. Well, as I said the wands are still undergoing testing. If the Ministry wants, it can have an input in its development, but only after it ceases hostilities and aids in the collection of all current wands. Also, if there is any utility that the new wands don't meet, there are always artefacts wizards can purchase to fulfil them; artefacts produced at workshops and factories, where advanced magic is allowed, but under tight regulation. This is how goblin society has run for centuries – can you tell me why wizards can't do the same?"

"You mean use artefacts produced by _your_ companies?" remarked Hermione. "There is no way that these new wands or any number of artefacts can replace our wands. The Ministry won't accept it – no wizard will accept it,"

"Well times are changing – we all have to adjust," said Fragarok. "Tradition is not an argument, Mrs. Weasley. You remember the last Wizarding War. That was a direct result of unregulated wand ownership. The magical world has never been safe – now we have a chance to fix that,"

"I remember the war, Fragarok," Hermione said firmly. "I also remember the twenty-three years of peace we had after. Our law enforcement does the finest job imaginable protecting us from those who abuse magic. They are the people who make our world as safe as it can possibly be. If you seize all current wands, wizards will find a way to get wands anyway. Efficient and powerful wands require expert craftsmanship, but a basic wand is not terribly difficult to make. You will end up creating a black market of new wands, run by dark wizard groups, which you'll only make stronger and more influential. That doesn't make the world safer for anyone,"

"Point of order, Kenneth," Alexander stood up. "I believe Mrs. Weasley has spoken out of turn twice, and went past her given time,"

Hardwin blinked and stared at a stopwatch that he never started. "What? Oh," He seemed to have been too caught up in the arguments. He looked to both Hermione and Fragarok in turn. "I'm sorry; there was a lot of jargon and unfamiliar terms in your exchange – there was a…a wizarding war, I gather?"

"Yes, but that is neither here nor there," said Alexander coolly. "I believe it's now the opposition's turn,"

"Ah, yes it is," Hardwin faced Hermione and Julia's table. "Opposition, either one of you may begin. I would like to urge both teams to please stick to the format of the debate,"

Technically, Hermione had indeed broke the rules, but she was answering a question Fragarok gave her. Julia patted her on the arm reassuringly. She then turned to address the audience. She and Hermione had previously agreed that she would take on the first speech of the second round.

"So, I think both sides have made it clear that the real threat in magic comes not from wands themselves, but from wizard extremists that abuse them. Our armed forces have clashed with them numerous times, but we've seen no indication that we are doing any damage to them, or even applying a hindrance to their terrible agenda. Magic gives these extremists a towering advantage in mobility, stealth, and the element of surprise, enabling them to use guerrilla tactics at a level that our military is simply not equipped to handle. Only one group has defeated wizard extremists before, and that is wizard governments such as the Ministry of Magic. Only magic can defend against magic, and we will need the Ministry to have any magic on our side,"

"On that point," said Fragarok, offering a point of information. Julia accepted.

"I think you underestimate the capabilities of your country's military, Ms. Fields. The Knights are about two dozen individual wizards, by our estimates. It is only a matter of time before the Allied forces weed them out with their superior numbers and firepower. To counter the advantage that magic gives the Knights, my companies are providing the Allied forces with adamantine-armoured vehicles, mithril vests, cold iron ammunition and magic detectors – and we are still developing new magical artefacts in collaboration with our human partners in arms manufacturing. The Allied forces are more than capable of defeating the Knights without the Ministry,"

As Fragarok was speaking, Hermione was fervently scrawling down points to counter his argument. She pushed her notepaper to Julia, who read it as she replied.

"Mr. Fragarok, the artefacts you just listed are all anti-magic artefacts. They can counter some of the Knights' magic, but they don't allow you to find and capture them before they can escape. To do so, you will need the same level of mobility, stealth and element of surprise that they have, and goblin-crafted artefacts alone cannot provide that. Only other wizards can possibly defeat the Knights. But they cannot do that while our military is occupying their homes, tossing them into an internment camp, and taking away their magic,"

The audience was giving off such a thick atmosphere of tension that it was making Hardwin uncomfortable. "Uh, thank you, Ms. Fields. And now back to the proposition,"

Alexander exchanged a quiet word with Fragarok, then cleared his throat and began.

"Ms. Fields, you and Mrs. Weasley make the argument that the Ministry of Magic will keep people safe from the dangers of magic," Alexander held a poignant pause. "But can we really trust them? Can the British people entrust their safety to a foreign entity – and they claim this themselves," Alexander spoke over Hermione's attempt to interject. "The Ministry of Magic wants to be recognized as a sovereign state. Yet we have evidence that this 'Ministry' has conspired to infiltrate and manipulate our government!" Alexander's voice rose fervently.

"This Ministry denies it, but we have dozens of intercepted letters, some from their top cabinet members, stating clearly that they have altered the minds of people in our government, bent them to their will. 'Dominating', they call this magic. They claimed that the late Prime Minister was 'firmly in their control'. A month later, he takes his own life on live television,"

"On that point," declared Hermione.

"Declined," Alexander replied and immediately carried on his speech. "The content of those letters has been publicized; you can read the incriminating evidence for yourselves. Dozens of other countries have corroborated our evidence with their own. All these exchanges between wizard governments – they all point to a concerted effort by wizardkind to manipulate humanity into a crippling nuclear war, so that they may rise as mankind's new rulers. The recent belligerence towards Europe from Russia; China's aggression on our Asian allies; tensions escalating to the brink of war in the Middle East – our evidence reveals that wizards have had a hand in all of these developments. Not wizard terrorists – wizard _governments_ ,"

"On that point!" Hermione declared so loud she nearly shouted.

"What is it, Mrs. Weasley?" Alexander did not tone down his own volume.

When the British government released all that damning evidence to the media, none of them ever said once that any of the letters were Blood-Sigiled. But Hermione couldn't bring up all that she had learnt from Harry's investigation, when she had no evidence to back it up.

"Several of the publicized letters clearly reveal that the British Ministry had no part in any conspiracy against humankind. As for the letters suggesting that the Ministry had dominated the late Prime Minister – the Ministry categorically denies it. That evidence could have easily been a plant by the Knights of Walpurgis!"

"How convenient that would be," said Alexander. "Yet you just pointed to other letters to claim that the British Ministry _isn't_ involved in manipulating us. How are you the arbiter of what evidence is real or fake? You had a high-level position in the Ministry, didn't you? How aware were you of this conspiracy among the wizard governments? If you knew about it, then you are complicit. If you didn't, then you were incompetently blind. In either case, you are just more evidence that this 'Ministry of Magic' cannot be trusted!"

The audience roared with approval, drowning any possibility of Hermione responding. Hermione couldn't hear Hardwin over the din as he announced the end of Alexander's time; he gestured for Hermione to begin as the crowd was still roaring.

"I…" The noise took ages to wind down. The first thing she wanted was to call out Alexander's gross accusation that she was either a supremacist or incompetent, but that was his trap. She only had a minute and a fifteen seconds for her speech, and she couldn't afford to spend it on being offended. She had to focus on refuting his statements.

"Mr. Alexander, you claim that several wizard governments had a hand in influencing political developments around the world. I will admit clearly that there are wizard supremacists in many national wizard communities. Some of them have influence on their Ministry of Magic, to varying degrees. But even supposing that some officials of some Ministries have attempted to influence human affairs, that has no relation to whether or not such influence is present in the British Ministry of Magic. And there isn't,"

"On that point," cut in Alexander.

"Declined," said Hermione; she didn't want him breaking up the flow of her speech. Several audience members booed her for declining the point of information, but she carried on. "You cite the intercepted letters as proof of the British Ministry's awareness and involvement of this conspiracy. But without physical proof, those letters are just words on paper. They can be falsified as easily as any words on paper. You currently have no solid evidence at all linking the Ministry of Magic to the deaths in the Prime Minister's Office, or any supremacist conspiracy,"

"On that point," Alexander interjected again. This time Hermione accepted it.

"Our last Prime Minister stabbed himself with a pen at a live public address. And said 'Ministry' with his dying breath. In my opinion, that, and the content of the letters is more than enough to prove the Ministry of Magic's involvement. Your accusation that the letters were planted by the Knights is even more ludicrous and unfounded. You want better evidence, but how are we supposed to find that when we can't even reach members of the Ministry? If the Ministry is so certain of its innocence, why don't they prove it at a tribunal? I think the reason is clear – the Ministry has manipulated our government for decades, and the Knights are either a convenient scapegoat, or working _with_ the Ministry as a proxy,"

The audience roared and booed with outrage. Alexander had gone over his thirty seconds but no one had even noticed.

"The Order of the Phoenix agrees – the Order agrees," Hermione repeated herself twice before the crowd quieted down. "The Order agrees wholeheartedly that there should eventually be a tribunal, but if you look at the situation from the Ministry's perspective, you must understand why they are not yet willing to submit themselves to a government-led inquiry. Allied forces continue to attack wizard towns and villages and round everyone they capture in an internment camp at Enfield. Fragarok claims that the government does _not_ intend to undermine the livelihood of wizards, but right now their actions speak much louder than his words. The Ministry and wizardkind get the strong impression that the government's real goal is to seize total control of our Ministry and our society. Until the British government engages wizardkind diplomatically, and we negotiate an end to hostilities, it will be…exceedingly difficult for us to face the true threat of wizard extremists,"

"No other nation is even contemplating the motion that we're debating right now, so I'd say we're a model example of engaging wizardkind diplomatically, despite their attacks on our civilians," Alexander said darkly. "The Ministry is accused of a crime. To resolve it, there must be a trial. It's as simple as that. The Ministry shouldn't have – it cannot have the trust of the British people until they prove themselves innocent in court,"

Again, Hardwin realized late that they had both gone over their speaking time. "Uh, time is up, we have to end this round here. Again, very passionate arguments from both sides. Ventured off a bit into a debate on the Ministry of Magic, but I suppose there is relevance to the question of wands. So, on to the third round: each side will take turns answering questions from the audience. Each answer is limited to one minute. Any debater on a team may answer if the question is not directed to a specific debater. Anyone on the opposing team may still raise points of information during a reply. Audience, simply raise your hand and we will hand you a mic,"

Several hands in the audience flew into the air. One of the fastest to raise his hand, a young man, received a mic from a studio crew member.

"Yeah, I got a question for the witch," he said with undisguised revulsion. "How can you expect us to live with your kind when you have all these dangerous powers?"

The man was from a section of the audience that had cheered Alexander and booed Hermione the loudest from the beginning of the debate. He had also used the term 'witch' like a slur, which she had only heard from the Defenders of Humanity. She wasn't surprised that the DoH had sent a contingent of its members to harass her at this debate.

Hermione paused, thinking on how best to respond, to answer the man's question as best as she can without returning his hostility and looking bad in the process. But Hardwin spoke first.

"I'm sorry, sir, but can you be more specific with your question? And do keep in mind that it should be relevant to the motion," Hardwin's face and tone became unnaturally stern as he addressed the man.

"Oh. Uh…the question is…" The man stumbled a while until he found his words. "I'm just saying that your kind is just too dangerous to live amongst us. Why can't you all just leave and stay on some far-away island – there's only like four thousand of you, it should be easy,"

"Sir, this will be the only warning to you and the rest of the audience," said Hardwin harshly. "Please watch your tone and your language. This is a live broadcast. Can we have another question from someone else?"

"It's okay, Mr. Hardwin; I'll answer this question," said Hermione. She wasn't sure what had caused this change in Hardwin's moderating, but she was grateful for it. "Before the Revelation, most wizards used to live hidden within small towns and villages. We understand that this is now…no longer possible. Most of us now live in wizard villages, separate from the human community. Moving is difficult for everyone, not simply due to the logistics of it. The Order of the Phoenix does not agree with the way that the Ministry has been taking and retaking human villages, displacing many families, but – you must understand, these wizards feel that they have been unfairly ousted from their hometown, so naturally many have preferred to retake them rather than live in a new village,"

The Defender of Humanity bristled at her reply. "We don't want you here at all. This is our country. Get your own!"

"England _is_ my country; I grew up in Yate, South Gloucestershire. My parents and I moved to London when I was eight so they could work as dentists. All wizards in Britain see it as their home; we love Britain just as much as you do. We named our government the 'Ministry of Magic' because, though we were isolated, we still saw ourselves as part of Britain. We want to continue to live here, but we will do so in our own towns and villages, where we won't bring any harm to humans. I have suggested to both the British government and the Ministry new laws to restrict wizard travel to human territory, but where we will have the freedom to carry wands in our own territory,"

"I hope that answer was to your satisfaction," Hardwin said pointedly to the Defender. "We will now take our next question,"

The next selected person was a young woman, flustered and giggling as she held her mic. "Um, I have a question for Mr. Alexander," She paused to titter with her friend who egged her on beside her. "Mr. Alexander, you're an avid mountaineer, a painting hobbyist, and you have a chess FIDE rating of 2359. My question is…how are you still not married yet?"

Hardwin stood dumbfounded for a couple of long seconds. "That question is, err, not relevant to the motion. Miss, do you have a question for the proposition that's related to the motion?"

"Oh, no I don't. I agree with what Mr. Alexander says though," the girl replied.

"Uh, thank you," Hardwin looked like he was resisting the urge to plant his face in his palm. "Can we have someone else with a question for the proposition?"

"If I may just answer the young lady's question," Alexander said as the audience raised their hands. "All my life I've been a bit of an explorer; I'm always drawn to one passion after another. I'm afraid I just haven't had the time to pursue a relationship. Of late I've been busy with my duties as an MP and in parliamentary discussions on magic and the ongoing conflict,"

"Well then, I have a related question for you, Mr. Alexander,"

John Blake received the next mic. He had earlier returned to his seat after taking his phone call. About half the audience gasped and murmured in recognition of him.

"You've been a notable critic of Prime Minister Humphrey's strategy on the conflict with wizardkind. Yet your criticism has been mostly about the methodology rather than the goal, which is to defend the security of the U.K. by seizing all wands. For clarification, would you mind telling us what you would do differently from the current administration?"

"Not at all," said Alexander coolly. "Prime Minister Humphrey has led a floundering and disorganized campaign to secure Britain against wizard attacks. Our armed forces are spread thin across England – as soon as we occupy one village, another is retaken. We've captured no figures of importance, and in a whole year, we've not come close to taking the wizard capital or any other route to capturing the Ministry. Our intelligence services –" he shot Blake a look. "– cannot even find this capital that supposedly seats the Ministry. And their intelligence on the Knights of Walpurgis is even more abysmal. If I were in charge of our armed forces, I would end this meandering about – we will solidify our strategy, rally our forces, and deliver a swift and decisive victory to our enemies!"

The audience roared and applauded with fervour. A contingent of youth chanted 'Cyril! Cyril! Cyril!' long after the rest of the audience quieted down.

Blake waited patiently for the chant to fade before speaking again.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't quite detailed – but I gather that you think our current strategy is not aggressive enough. Did I hear you correctly that you would like to lay siege to the British wizard capital if we manage to locate it?"

"If the Ministry continues to attack our citizens and does not acquiesce to our terms, then I'm afraid there is no other resolution to this conflict,"

"Supposing that we do manage to capture the capital, what will be the fate of the Ministry afterwards?"

"They will be subjected to a tribunal for their crimes against humanity. Those who are found guilty will serve appropriate sentences and be replaced with new officials who will work with humanity towards a peaceful and prosperous future,"

"You mean you will depose the current leadership of the Ministry and install new leaders more sympathetic to our interests? That would be the track that the U.S. is currently following. How successful would you say the U.S.'s current strategy is turning out?"

Hermione could practically see the line of tension between Alexander and Blake, with the audience held breathless in between. Alexander's lips tightened.

Alexander's taut grimace held for another tense moment, before suddenly softening back to his confident smile.

"I think you've asked a lot more than one question, Mr. Blake. And we've once again drifted far off-topic. The U.S. has made a greater effort than we have in restoring peace and order to their nation. Their wizard government has been tried and sentenced for their crimes against the U.S. Wands from the majority of the U.S. wizard population have been successfully collected, and their military has gone on to aid other nations, including the U.K., in reigning in their wizard populations. I would love to debate you on this issue, but as our time here is limited, I think we should move on,"

"I'm afraid Mr. Alexander's right," said Hardwin. "Though perhaps it can be the motion for a future debate. Let's now have another question for the opposition,"

The next speaker from the audience was an older woman.

"I have a question for Mrs. Weasley. My son works at an oil platform. He tells me that an oil platform is attacked at least once a week. He's been in one himself – wizards popping in out of nowhere, and then a huge shockwave that destroys all their equipment from the inside. My son and his friends are out of a job until they are repaired. He's says it's the wizard militia that does this, not the wizard terrorists. My question is: why? Why do they do this?"

Hermione took a breath to collect herself before making her reply.

"Ma'am, I'm very sorry for what happened to your son and his colleagues. The Order of the Phoenix absolutely condemns the Ministry's attacks on Britain's energy and resource infrastructure, at buildings run by innocent civilians. The Ministry has issued statements after several of these attacks. They all make a similar explanation that their attack was retaliation against the British government for capturing and displacing wizard families. They claim that they will only cease their attacks when the British government ceases its capture and displacement of wizards and releases everyone they have detained at the Enfield internment camp,"

"Point of information," said Alexander.

Hermione had a bad feeling about the surly look on Alexander's face; he was definitely looking to regain standing after Blake's difficult questions. Unfortunately, she couldn't afford to look weak by rejecting his interruption. "Yes, Mr. Alexander,"

"As Mrs. Weasley has mentioned, the Ministry attacks more than just our North Sea oil platforms – they attack our energy and resource infrastructure – oil platforms, terminals and refineries, power stations and substations – these places are numerous and out of the way, thus it is impossible to defend them all. Their constant attacks have raised consumer prices across the board and stalled our economy. Our economy was already weak from the last financial crisis, and the wizard government thinks they can strike a bargain by grinding us towards another recession. These cowardly attacks from the Ministry of Magic is no more than terrorism. We do not, and we should not negotiate with those who resort to such tactics,"

"I do not condone these tactics either, but this is the route the Ministry has chosen in lieu of formal negotiation with the British government," Hermione retorted. "The British government has chosen not to negotiate – because, I suppose, they believe humanity is the side with the upper hand, thus wizardkind will have to cave to their terms eventually. Whether or not that is true, the present stalemate is a direct result of that strategy. Both sides trading pot-shots that hurt only civilians. I implore all of you to consider if your government has truly made the right decision here,"

The crowd murmured amongst itself. A few people seemed to be getting into heated arguments with their companions. Alexander, his expression darkened, spoke to Fragarok with the air of someone giving an order. Julia beamed at Hermione. "Hermione, you're doing amazing! Goodness, we might actually stand a shot at winning!"

Hermione suspected that the crowd was far too stacked against her for that, but she was glad to be faring decent in the arguments.

"Alright, we have time for one more question from the audience, for the proposition," said Hardwin. Several hands shot into the air.

The mic was given to an older man in a suit, looking sharper and more clean-cut than most of the audience. When Hermione saw him, her fledgling spirts sank to the ground; she already knew who he was.

"My name is Anthony Clarke. Five years ago, my daughter June moved to the U.S. to pursue a career in acting. A year later, I received word from the United States police that she had been killed in a mugging. I was devastated. She was a beautiful, sweet girl, who never hurt anyone. I didn't understand – I still don't – why something so horrible happened to her. But what I felt then was nothing compared to how I feel now,"

The audience was totally silent as Clarke continued. "A year ago, two months after the Revelation, a hacker uncovered top secret documents from the CIA's Counter-Magic Division – which, like our own MI7, operated without the public even knowing of its existence. What I read in those leaked documents shattered me. June was in one of their files – one of their case reports. She wasn't killed in a mugging – she had been abducted – abducted by wizards and turned by magic into a mind-controlled prostitute for other wizards. The report says that she died committing suicide after breaking out of their control. The CIA lied to the police – they altered evidence and forged a crime scene to make her death look like the result of a mugging. And that's not all – June, she called me before she was abducted; she asked me for money to move out because she thought there were men watching her. But I don't remember that conversation at all. My memories were altered by wizards – MACUSA, the U.S. wizard government. The CIA collaborated with wizards to hide the truth from me and my wife. And there are dozen more cover-ups like these in the CIA's leaked documents. And I know for _certain_ that MI7 has covered up cases like this as well," He threw a finger at John Blake at the back of the audience. "Though they've no doubt erased the reports by now. I want justice for my daughter, I want justice for myself, and I want justice for all the families that have been lied to as I have. But most of all, I want to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. So my question is to Mr. Fragarok: I heard that wizards have altered our minds and memories for centuries to keep their existence secret. Can you tell us what you know about this?"

A cold wave ran down Hermione's spine; of course her most challenging obstacle would come at the end and threaten to overshadow all the arguments she made before. Clarke's story had been reported a hundred times in the media, and a hundred times more by politicians riding the wave of anti-wizard sentiment. She had spoken to him before on the phone, but he didn't take kindly to her foolish attempt to explain the Ministry's rationale for keeping the secrecy of magic.

"Um, I'm sorry," said Hardwin tentatively. "I suppose I should have more clear earlier, but questions to the debaters have to challenge their position on the motion,"

Clarke wasn't fazed. "Ah, okay. Then let me rephrase the question. Mr. Fragarok, how much has the British Ministry of Magic used mind magic on us, and will taking their wands stop it?"

Hardwin's jowls sagged with his frown, as he stood considering whether to allow the question. Finally he relented. "Very well. You may take the question, Mr. Fragarok,"

To Hermione's surprise, Fragarok looked a little hesitant to speak; he gave a short, almost wary glance at Alexander, then scanned the audience as if he suspected someone hiding within. Then he activated his mic.

"Mr. Clarke, you are correct to assume that the British Ministry of Magic, like MACUSA, has used mental magic on humanity to maintain the secrecy of magic; for over three centuries, in fact. They have several departments assigned to different aspects of that task, from rewriting memories, to inventing excuses to explain damages caused by magic. And the Ministry has never made it a secret that they had assistance from MI7 in doing so. Unfortunately, I have heard of too many cases like that of your daughter; they happen in Britain as well, and it is nothing short of a crime that their families haven't been given the truth as they deserve. The simple answer to your question, Mr. Clarke, is yes; the magic to alter memories and forcibly control minds requires a wand. If all currently-owned and crafted wands are replaced with my company's safer alternative, then we can reduce the occurrence of such tragedies to the minimum, if not eradicate them completely,"

"Point of information," called Hermione. Fragarok gruffly accepted it.

"I'm sorry, Fragarok, but your answer is wrong. As much as I too deeply regret that these horrible tragedies exist, it is wrong and frankly irresponsible of you to claim that you would substantially reduce them by seizing currently owned wands. As I've stated before, confiscating the wands of law-abiding wizards will do very little to reduce the crimes perpetrated by dark wizard groups," Hermione turned to address Clarke. "Mr. Clarke, the people who did that to your daughter are criminals of the most heinous sort. The Ministry does everything it can to prevent such crimes from happening –"

"Except restricting wand use," said Fragarok.

"We already do restrict wand use," Hermione replied. "If any wizard casts an illegal spell, the Ministry detects it and sends law enforcement to the location immediately,"

"But there are plenty of ways around their detection; casting your spells under anti-magic cover, going out of range of detection, or simply hurting others with spells that aren't illegal,"

"Just as there are ways around banning wands. No amount of restriction will stop crime; we just make the most reasonable laws we can,"

"Allow me to take it from here, Fragarok," said Alexander, cutting over his partner before he could retort. "Let us stay –"

Alexander was himself interrupted by Hardwin. "I'm sorry, Mr. Alexander, but if you wish to speak you must have Mrs. Weasley accept your point of information,"

"It's fine; you may continue, Mr. Alexander," If Hermione wanted any hope of changing people's minds, she couldn't back down here.

Alexander's lips twitched in the fleetest of sneers. "Very well. Let us stay focused on the crux of Mr. Clarke's question. Mrs. Weasley, these laws that you claim can protect all of us from abuses of magic – they are written by the Ministry of Magic. The problem that I have with that is the Ministry has demonstrated clearly that they think nothing of abusing their power, that they think nothing of us or the sanctity our minds. Right now, the Ministry holds dozens of soldiers and civilians captive, and uses mental magic to force them to work against mankind,"

The crowd booed furiously, with several sharp cries of 'Monsters!'

"Point of misrepresentation," declared Julia. "That is only speculation from MI7. There is not yet any proof that confirms or denies that the Ministry of Magic dominates its prisoners," Hermione kept her face frozen lest she reveal anything to the cameras.

"How else would they have managed to conduct cyberattacks on our power stations and government communications?" replied Alexander. "How they've learnt to counter our technology, to always stay a step ahead of our military? You are too naïve if you think the Ministry is not dominating their prisoners,"

Alexander turned back to the audience.

"What I have mentioned are just some of the crimes against humanity that the Ministry needs to be tried for. Our own government has been complicit as well. Those responsible need to be convicted in court and replaced with those who will respect our rights and work with us to ensure our security. Mrs. Weasley, I hear that you too have used mental magic in the past,"

The atmosphere of the studio stiffened once again. So Alexander had saved his best attack for last after all. Hermione had been waiting the entire debate for when this attack would come.

"You rewrote the memories of your parents – your parents who are ordinary humans. You changed their names, their backgrounds, their very identities. When you were a teenager, no less, with only a wand. Mental magic on another wizard is a crime, isn't it? And yet wizards do it to us with impunity. You want us to believe that wizards have any respect for our well-being or our rights, but the actions of you and your Ministry demonstrate that wizards clearly view us as lesser beings, whose minds can be toyed with at a whim. Your people have gone unchecked for too long; now you will face the consequences of your hubris, and mankind will not be toyed with again!"

The audience roared furiously. Through the cacophony Hermione heard cries of 'witch' and 'monster'. After over a year in London representing the Order, she was very familiar with such calls by now, and far less affected by them than she used to be.

Hermione reached towards her mic to activate it, but Julia stopped her hand.

"Uh-uh. It's better if I defend you on this," Julia said, and turned on her own mic.

"Mr. Alexander, Mrs. Weasley has issued a statement on the Order of the Phoenix's website, giving her full apology for the incident and explaining the full context of when and why she did it. It was 1997, and during that time wizards in Britain were at conflict with a wizard terrorist group known as the Death Eaters. Mrs. Weasley was a combatant in that conflict, and feared for her parents' safety. So at the time, she believed that the best way to protect them was to give them new identities with new memories, so that it would be difficult for Death Eaters to identify her parents even with their own mental magic. After the conflict ended she restored their memories –"

"Point of information," raised Alexander. Julia acquiesced. "Mrs. Weasley, did you ask your parents for permission before you altered their memories?"

"Thank you, Julia; I'll handle it from here," said Hermione, and turned to address Alexander. "No. I didn't. At the time –"

"And you weren't detected by the Ministry when you cast your magic?"

Alexander wanted to dictate the course of their conversation. That was fine with her; there was nothing she wanted to hide.

"I was. The Ministry's Aurors – their finest law enforcement agents – appeared almost immediately. I had made some preparations to escape them – I cast the spell in a crowded area and teleported away – but they still caught me. Fortunately for me, one of the Aurors was an ally in the fight against the Death Eaters, and he let me escape,"

"And after the conflict, you received a pardon for your crime,"

"Yes, but only because my parents testified for me. What I did was a crime in the Ministry's Statute of Forbidden Magic. Mr. Alexander, you wish to assert that the Ministry does not care for the rights of humans, but we do. Right now, despite the British government's actions against them, the Ministry still sends its police and Aurors to respond to crimes against humans, and that of course includes the crimes of the Knights of Walpurgis –"

"Good deeds on one hand do not cancel out bad deeds on the other," said Alexander. "I'm glad you are able to admit your mistakes, but you and the Ministry remain guilty of crimes that you have dodged the consequences for. Mrs. Weasley, you argue for the status quo – to allow wizards to keep their wands as they always have and let the Ministry combat crime. But the numerous examples of crime and terrorism we've discussed is all evidence that the status quo is not enough! The people want justice and change, and we will not be denied them. I say we should hear from your parents on whether they think altering people's minds is something that can pardoned in all cases," He gestured towards Clarke.

"My parents are currently under the protection of secret identities with the help of MI7, so they're not available for comment. And I never came close to suggesting that all mental magic crimes can be pardoned. Neither did I suggest that good deeds can cancel out bad," Alexander was twisting her words, but with clarity of mind it was no issue to straighten them out again. "The Ministry and I have made mistakes – and the people of Britain deserve a tribunal to hold the Ministry accountable – but seizing all wands is overcorrecting the problem, and it harms all of us,"

Hardwin tapped his mic to break Hermione's speech.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but we really have no time left for this segment. We must move on to the final round. And the final round will be an uninterrupted closing statement by one debater from each side. Two minutes each, starting with the opposition," He gesture to her and Julia. "Either of you may begin,"

Julia nodded to Hermione encouragingly. They had decided from the beginning that she would take the closing speech. Hermione took a steadying breath and faced the audience head-on.

"I would like to explain why I altered my parents' memories back when I was a teenager, and why I didn't ask for their permission first. At the time…I was afraid that they wouldn't agree. Their safety was so important to me that I thought it overrode everything else, including their opinion on the matter. I wanted to take the highest precautions possible to keep my parents safe, but I should have trusted them to keep themselves safe. The greater protection I gave them was not worth what I put them through. After the war, I restored their memories and apologized for the confusion I caused them,"

"What I did was a mistake. And now you in the audience are faced with a similar decision. Ultimately, this debate is a question about trust. Can humanity trust wizardkind enough to let it retain its power? I know it may be much to ask of you, especially if you have been wronged by wizards before; I had trouble trusting my own parents – but I know that mankind has more than enough strength to afford giving that trust. The United Kingdom has always been a global leader of liberty and progress; in the face of threats across our history, you have not let fear compromise your values or curtail your potential. As a representative of my people, I only ask that you find the courage to take the lead again, and help bring a peaceful end to this conflict. Thank you,"

The audience applauded. It was about a third of them, the same as Hermione received at the end of her opening statement. That didn't bode well for the final result, but dwelling on that would do nothing for her now. All at once, the pressure released from her body; the debate was over on her part, and she had given it all of her heart and mind. All that was left for her now was to wait for the results.

"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley. And now proposition, you may begin,"

Alexander swept a grave face across the studio before speaking. As always the crowd granted him rapt attention.

"I have to agree with Mrs. Weasley on one point; this debate is a question about trust. In fact, trust is the question of the twenty-first century; at the crux of every great challenge of this era, is the question of what to trust, and what to doubt. The Revelation of Magic has brought a dark veil of uncertainty over our world, greater than anything before it. To think that something so enormous and unimaginable has existed under our noses from the beginning of humanity. And governments from all over the world have been complicit in concealing it from us. What can we truly believe in anymore?"

"Mrs. Weasley would like us to trust in the better nature of her kind; she believes that no changes are necessary in spite of the horrible injustices magic enables. Is mere trust simply enough for the level of danger that magic inherently possesses? Mrs. Weasley likens the risk of magic to technology – is the power to control minds equivalent to any technology that we allow to the general public? Mrs. Weasley makes a high-minded call to courage, appealing to our values of liberty and progress.

"In a perfect world, you are encouraged to root for the idealist. But this isn't a perfect world. This isn't a fairy tale story. In the real world, we temper our values with precautions against those who don't share them. More than any high-minded value, laws and regulations are what keep society alive. Mankind has known this forever, and now wizardkind must know it too! We will deliver justice to those who have deceived us and restore trust and certainty to our lives! Vote for the proposition! And help us bring an end to fear!"

The crowd cheered and applauded at their loudest yet. The Alexander fans in the audience chanted 'Cyril! Cyril! Cyril!' while pumping their fists in the air. After the applause died they continued chanting, until Alexander stopped them with a staying gesture.

"Well, that concludes all the speeches from our guests!" said Hardwin. "A very lively and broad discussion this has been. Audience, now that you've heard their arguments, it is time to cast your second vote. In a moment, your keypads will activate to allow you to do so. The motion of the debate is: the British government should continue to requisition all wands from wizards. The winner of this debate will be the team that gains the most votes to their side,"

The heads of the audience turned down to click away at their keypads. With every second that passed, Hermione's nerves coiled tighter. Just like she used to as a student, she started mentally preparing herself for failure by thinking about where she went wrong, how she could have done better. Alexander had waited for his final statement to strike at all her key arguments; perhaps she should have done the same with her final statement…both sides ignored the time limit multiple times…should she have taken advantage of that better, or stick to the rules and call out Alexander's transgressions? There were just so many things…

"All the votes have been made," Hardwin turned around to a screen behind him. "First off, let us see the results of the first poll,"

Hermione turned up at the pie chart onscreen. 'For' was blue, 'Against' was red, and 'Undecided' was grey.

"Wow, uh, that's a large majority in favour of the proposition. Seventy-four percent 'for', fifteen percent 'against', eleven percent 'undecided'. And now…let us see the results of the second poll,"

Hermione watched the pie chart shift, and her jaw dropped.

"Seventy-five percent 'for', seventeen percent 'against', eight percent 'undecided'. The winner is the opposition!"

A third of audience applauded, while the other two-thirds sat with a similar reaction as Hermione. Hardwin said something involving 'congratulations' and 'thank you for watching' to close out the programme, but Hermione didn't hear him; neither did she hear Julia speaking elatedly beside her. There may have been an uproar of discontent somewhere, but she couldn't pinpoint its location. Eventually, the noise died down and she dimly watched as the audience started to mill out of the studio. It was only as Ron and John Blake came up to her that her external awareness returned.

"Hermione, you were brilliant!" said Ron, beaming.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Weasley, Ms. Fields; that was a hard-fought victory," Blake gave a short bow.

"Yes, and I'd imagine quite an upset of expectations," said Julia. "Hopefully the media will cover this for a day or two, so as many people hear about the debate as possible,"

Hermione's spirits finally started to turn up in response to their victory. It had just been so long since the last positive development in her life. "Oh, yes – Julia, we'll need to craft a good statement to give the press – and maybe now's the time to take out some new ads for the Order. With enough donations and volunteers we can start organizing events and protests –"

Ron's smile fell. "Uh, Hermione…" he gave her one of his cringing looks that he had whenever he had to bring bad news.

"…What is it?"

"Mrs. Weasley," Blake spoke soberly. "There was an attack by the Knights of Walpurgis at a nuclear warhead storage site in West Scotland. The BBC cut broadcast of the debate to break the news,"

Blake pulled out his phone and showed her a live stream of the BBC One channel. There was no audio, but she could see a reporter standing far off from a remote building complex. The headline beneath the reporter read 'Wizard attack at nuclear storage site'.

"Oh goodness," breathed Julia. "What's happened? Have they got a hold of any nuclear weapons?"

"No, they haven't," said Blake. "There are no more nuclear weapons or material stored in that facility. The U.S. has sent its finest countermagic forces into the site. Engagement with the Knights there has ended, though they are still securing the area,"

"My, that is a relief to hear,"

Alexander and Fragarok came up to Hermione and Julia's table. "Any report of injuries?" Alexander asked Blake as if they were on casual terms.

"Three of the site personnel are injured, but not in critical condition," Blake replied curtly.

"Good thing the U.K. moved all its nukes out of known storage sites, eh?" remarked Fragarok. "The Knights ought to know that by now, so why did they attack?"

"Possibly, they wanted to interrogate site personnel on where the nuclear warheads were relocated to," said Blake. "Fortunately, that is top-secret information on need-to-know restriction. Even I don't know where they are,"

"If we just destroyed all our nuclear weapons, we wouldn't have to face the danger of wizards using them against us," said Alexander sharply.

"The Prime Minister believes that is too much of a sacrifice," said Blake. "But that is a whole other debate, and I'm sure you gentlemen have places you need to be soon,"

Fragarok glanced at a pocket watch he drew from his suit pocket. "Ah, you're right. I must be returning to the goblin capital. Pleasure trading blows with you, Ms. Fields, Mrs. Weasley," He bowed to them with his wide smile of shark-like teeth. "Maybe we'll cross again in the future,"

Fragarok pulled another item from his pocket: a tiny, green-tinted scroll. Using her mana sense, Hermione recognized the spell it was imbued with: an Apparition spell. As they weren't allowed to own wands, goblins commonly bought and used scrolls to cast spells.

Fragarok broke the scroll's seal and unfurled it. "Entrance gate, Gragelhrugrak!" he declared at it. And both he and the scroll vanished with a crack.

Julia jolted in surprise, but Alexander was entirely unfazed by Fragarok's Disapparition. He similarly bid his farewell. "Congratulations on your victory, Ms. Fields, Ms. Weasley. I was…very impressed with your passion and eloquence today,"

Alexander levelled a scrutinizing gaze at Hermione; after everything she'd been through in her life, she didn't think she was intimidated easily, but something about him unsettled her at an ineffable level.

"A shame about the broadcast being interrupted. A most unfortunate coincidence," His expression was smooth and unmoving, an implacable enigma. "We stand at cross-purposes, but I do admire a noble struggle. I look forward to seeing how far your strength will take you. Good day, Mrs. Weasley,"

Alexander turned and strode out of the studio.

"Mrs. Weasley," Hardwin approached after apparently speaking with the studio manager. "I just heard about the storage site attack and our show being cut. Just awful turn of events. The show will broadcast on the evening re-air though,"

"That is good to hear," replied Blake. "Though the attack is going to dominate all news media for the next few days. The debate will only get a brief mention if it's even covered at all,"

Hermione knew that she should be more concerned about the Knight attack that just occurred, but she couldn't shake off her devastation on learning that the debate broadcast had been interrupted. Her greatest chance ever to propagate the Order's goals across Britain – and it was ripped away from her. She thought she was fighting a battle today, but before she had even started, she had already lost.

"Oh, err, Mr. Blake. Yes, I'm afraid you might be right. I can try talking to BBC News' controller, but I'm not sure how much help I can be," Hardwin frowned before turning back to Hermione and Julia. "Still, it was a pleasure to have you on the programme. I…I wish good luck to you and wizardkind,"

"Um, thank you very much, Mr. Hardwin," Hermione replied mechanically.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, I'm afraid we can't stay; you do have an appointment," said Blake.

The highs and lows of the debate had made it completely slip her mind; the Prime Minister wanted to speak to her.

They bid farewell to Hardwin and Julia and made their way out of the Broadcasting House, escorted by the front and back by MI7 agents. As they emerged from the front door, they met with a cacophony of yells and a sea of picket signs bobbing in the air.

"Burn the witch! Burn the witch!" chanted the Defenders of Humanity. The BBC's security officers stood before the protestors, keeping a narrow lane open for employees to go to and fro the building.

Hermione, Ron and Blake passed swiftly through the crowd and entered their waiting limousine. The shrill cries outside dulled as they shut the car door, eventually fading away as they drove off.

Ron could sense Hermione's dismay and patted her hand gently. "It's okay dear; I'm sure we'll get plenty of coverage. Like that Alexander said, it's the first time something like this has ever happened. The BBC advertised the debate loads in the last week, so I'm sure many will watch it when it airs,"

"I guess you're right…" she muttered. She had just hoped for more publicity through the news. On another day the debate would have been the leading story on all newspapers and newscasts. But now the news would be dominated by coverage of the storage site attack, probably with debates on whether their nuclear weapons should be disarmed, and reminders of the terrible danger that wizards could present if they acquired them.

"Bloody hell, that Alexander was one two-faced blighter," remarked Ron. "One moment he's polite and smiling, and the next he's raving with 'we demand justice!' When he started attacking you personally, it made me want to hex him in his smug pasty face. Maybe I should have done it a little – cover his face in a few dozen boils –"

Hermione knew he was just venting for her, but still felt the need to correct him out of personal habit. "Ron, that would have been a catastrophe. Demonstrating that we can still cast some magic without wands –"

"It's just a thought, dear," Ron gave her a jesting smile. "He could stand to add a little colour in his cheeks. That white, poncy little – like a douchey unicorn. Remember that damn unicorn from the menagerie?"

Ron was referring to the time their family went to a magical menagerie for Lily and Rose's eighth and seventh birthday respectively. Ron tried to help Rose up onto a unicorn at a riding course, but the unicorn was in a bad mood and brandished its horn at them. Rose became sad because that made her think that the unicorn deemed her unworthy of sitting on it. So rather than let a handler bring in another unicorn, Ron tried to 'tame' it and ended up chasing it around the entire zoo's course, to the hollering and cheering of the children and several spectators. Four minutes and two hoof kicks later, Ron managed to pull the unicorn back for Rose and let her ride it without incident.

"Yes, I remember," Hermione shook her head at the memory. The boys cheering Ron as he leapt on and clung to the bucking unicorn, Rose's conflicted smile as she rode it around the course, Ron's sheepish apology to the handlers for the commotion he caused…it was such a sharp contrast to the ordeal she just went through – how did he even manage to bring it up?

"Ah, and that annoying crowd," Ron continued. "Hollering like a bunch of Quidditch hooligans. Purposely yelling to drown out someone else speaking, bloody rude to anyone with a different opinion, zero respect for procedure and cheering only for empty, hackneyed lines. You know who they reminded me of?"

"Who?" asked Hermione.

"Parliament,"

Hermione had to let out an amused snort at that. "You say that as if you've attended more than a handful of sessions. I've had more than enough experience with crowds like that when I was pushing for elf wage rights and repealing laws of pureblood privilege,"

"That's right," Ron nodded, speaking more evenly. "A lot of people in your own party didn't want to support you, but in the end you managed to turn them around. And then suddenly everyone started supporting house-elf wages, like it was the most obvious thing ever. Some things need to reach a tipping point before we see how far we've come. I think today you've brought us a lot closer to it,"

Hermione smiled at her husband. "Yeah. Thanks Ron," She wasn't completely over the wasted effort of the debate, but the sharp twinge in her had ebbed way. Unfortunately she wasn't sure she could agree with his assessment. Ron was being optimistic for her sake, but Hermione had to keep the truth in perspective. The ratio of 'for' votes to 'against' at the debate – seventy-four percent to eleven – was fairly close to publicly polled opinion on the same question of seizing wizards' wands. If this tipping point Ron spoke of even existed, it was still a very long way off.

"We've arrived at Downing Street," said Blake, opening the limousine door. "Please step outside for a security check, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley,"

Hermione alighted the limousine and emerged on Downing Street. Behind her was the black steel gate closing off the street to the public, which they had just passed through. From the nearby guardhouse, several police officers surrounded Hermione and Ron and asked them to raise their arms to be searched. In addition to being patted down, they also waved a rod-like device over them: a cold iron-based magic detector. It gave a low continuous beep – the detector picked up the innate mana within them but not any more that would suggest that they were holding a wand or magical artefact.

"This way, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, it's only a short walk," said Blake once the police officers let them go.

They walked down the highly exclusive street and soon came before the famous black door marked with the number '10'. There were no doorknobs or keyholes on the door; Blake stood before the door and it was opened by a police officer from the inside. Hermione entered into a modestly-sized entrance hall, but stately furnished with several portraits, a clean but disused fireplace, and an ornate grandfather clock.

Blake led them up the main staircase – passing many portraits of prior Prime Ministers – down several corridors and into a gleaming white-themed drawing room, featuring plush white couches, a white mantel fireplace, and a glassy white chandelier.

"Please take a seat; the Prime Minister will be with you shortly," Blake gestured to the couches.

Hermione didn't have to wait long; after a minute of staring about the room, British Prime Minister Julian Humphrey entered. He was a stoutly built man in a sharp black suit, with pouchy cheeks and a dark greying comb-over. He looked her over with narrow, beady eyes, held over stark eye bags as large as the eyes above them. As he approached, he exuded great lethargy in his plodding gait, as if each step to his next order of business took great effort from him. All in all, Humphrey called to mind a very weary, sullen dark bulldog.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, pleased to meet you," Humphrey sat down in the couch across from them and next to Blake. He did not come forward to shake their hands; probably due to the potential of them harming him with wandless magic. His voice was short and gruff, slightly grumpy.

"I heard you just won the debate on the BBC. Congratulations. Did you wipe the smile off Alexander's face? Pity I couldn't see it. I had to give a statement on the Allied offensive last night, and then on the storage site attack this morning,"

Hermione hesitated on how best to begin addressing the Prime Minister, but thinking of the families that lost their homes last night gave her the strength to speak naturally.

"Prime Minister, the military offensive last night has displaced many wizarding families from their homes. Many of these wizards are desperate to retake their homes and may attack by themselves or with the Knights of Walpurgis in order to do so. I beseech you, Prime Minister, to consider allowing all wizards who lost their homes last night to return and teleport them to a wizard village,"

"Actually, your people displaced my people from those villages first," Humphrey replied curtly. "But that's something we'll discuss later. For now, we need to talk about more dire issues,"

The Prime Minister leant back pensively with his fingers interlaced. "So yesterday, the Minister for Magic met with MI7, bringing with him some of his own staff. Their memories apparently provided evidence that the Ministry was framed; that the intelligence we have linking the British Ministry to the death of Prime Minister Bradbury and his aides was falsified,"

"Technically, the evidence you gave us is not indisputable," Humphrey continued coolly. "The memories of the Ministry officers you brought for us to examine could have been altered by the Ministry themselves. Thus it is not quite enough for us to go public on announcing your innocence. But I am now willing to give the Ministry the benefit of the doubt. Do you have anything that might aid us in uncovering the true perpetrators of the Prime Minister's murder?"

Hermione had ruminated for days on who the culprits could be, and could come up with nothing that Harry or the Ministry hadn't already thought of.

"I'm afraid I don't, but my chief suspicion is on the Knights of Walpurgis. They are the only group I'm aware of with both the motivation and means,"

"Hmm. I see," muttered Humphrey. "Well, they do seem to be the most likely culprits, given what we know. But I get the sense that what we know is very little. It's a feeling that the entire world has been stuck with since the Revelation," He glanced away for a moment, considering his words. "But what little we do know terrifies us. All of Westminster is on edge. The idea that any of us could be 'dominated', our minds puppeteered by magic, and that there is no defence against it – you understand why many want to end this conflict as soon as possible, by the soonest means possible,"

"Sir," began Blake. "There is a way to for us to defend ourselves against mental magic,"

Humphrey grimaced. "You mean the Occlumency Charms? Your own research team found that they were unsafe,"

"Yes, but with the proper modifications –"

Humphrey waved his hand dismissively. "I told you, I won't hear any more of it. If we can't guarantee the charms are one hundred percent secure on our own, then we cannot use them,"

"On to our main order of business," said Humphrey, turning back to Hermione. "During the Minister for Magic's visit, he left Mr. Blake a magic mirror that allowed for two-way communication between them. A means of direct communication, for both parties to circumvent the more bureaucratic channels that our conspirators have abused. In the early hours of today, following the Allied offensive on several wizard-held villages, The Minister for Magic contacted Mr. Blake requesting negotiations. Mr. Blake brought the mirror to me. And so Minister Cadogan and I reached an agreement,"

Hermione and Ron both sat up in their seats.

"We will allow the wizards that were displaced from their homes last night to return and teleport their homes to a different village. We will allow the same for all other wizard homes in towns and villages that were retaken in this conflict. We will also begin a ceasefire, whereby we will cease all further military operations to capture wizards or occupy wizardkind territory,"

Hermione's heart jumped to her throat. After so long fighting against a brick wall of opposition, with nary an inch of progress – and now here came a ceasefire from the mouth of the Prime Minister, out of nowhere.

"In exchange, the British Ministry of Magic will cease all of their own operations against the United Kingdom and the British government. And they will release all human prisoners they have ever captured,"

That sounded more than fair – it was fantastic. The Ministry's main purpose in taking prisoners was to fill themselves in on Muggle technology and political intelligence that they weren't familiar with. They had little more use for them now save as bargaining chips for deals such as this.

"D-Did Minister Cadogan agree?" Hermione sputtered.

Humphrey nodded. "Yes, the Minister for Magic has agreed to this proposal. However –" He paused seriously. "Keep aware that the Conservative Party still believes in requisitioning all currently owned wands from wizardkind and enforcing a ban on their common use. It is still, by a large margin, the will of the people,"

"I tell you this so you may understand – negotiations following this ceasefire, if it happens, will still have to proceed very gradually. Where we go from there will depend heavily on the public's reaction to the ceasefire. And somewhere down that line, we _will_ demand a tribunal for the Ministry of Magic, to answer for all their crimes against humanity,"

Humphrey wouldn't admit to it directly, but Hermione understood what he had implied and the context behind it. Since the beginning of the war between Muggles and wizards, the Labour and the Conservative Party have been competing to be more anti-wizard, to be the party that the people could trust to ensure their security. A year and three months later, and Labour has emerged ahead of that contest through the rhetoric and charisma of Cyril Alexander. With Britain's economy grinding to a halt, and faced with the possibility of being impeached, the Prime Minister was now taking a different approach in hopes of raising his public approval.

"I understand, Prime Minister," said Hermione.

Humphrey gave a short nod. "Good; now there is just one minor issue before this agreement can go forward. There is one prisoner that the Ministry of Magic does not have custody of, and we require him as well,"

Blake reached into his suit and somehow pulled out a palm-sized photograph. He handed the photo to Hermione. "Are you familiar with a young boy by the name of Ethan Chen?"

The photo was a head shot of a young boy wearing a suit and tie, likely a school yearbook photo. The face and name both rang a faint bell, but she could be mistaken. "I…I don't think so,"

"He is a hacker, who also goes by the handle of 'Greyscales'. In September of last year, he broke into the CIA Counter-Magic Division's database and leaked details of its involvement with MACUSA in maintaining secrecy of magic,"

Hermione remembered that; it was the leading story of the news for nearly the whole month. Now she recognized him; he was the same boy she had seen a month ago in her video meeting with the Ministry war cabinet. Back when she was still at the Ministry, she remembered making a huge outcry when she learnt that Harry had kidnapped him – and then she forgot his name.

Blake continued speaking. "We believe that about ten months ago, Ethan Chen was captured by the Ministry of Magic to aid and educate them in cyberwarfare and cybersecurity. And we've recently learnt that a month ago, he escaped the Ministry,"

"Escaped?" uttered Ron in disbelief. "How did that happen?"

"Possibly aided by the Order of the Phoenix," said Blake, eyeing them intently. "He is currently at the 'Hogwarts' wizard school,"

"What?" gasped Ron. Hermione could only gape soundlessly. "How do you know?"

"Intelligence sources," said Blake ambiguously. "There is quite a bit of chatter about him in the wizard community. Word is that he is a willing informant for the Ministry, currently taking refuge at Hogwarts and taking classes with its Squib students. But we believe that it is highly unlikely that he remains at the school of his own will, so he is essentially still a prisoner,"

"But…but why would Professor McGonagall do that?" asked Hermione. _And why didn't she tell me about it_? McGonagall was the face of the Order on the wizard side, but she given Hermione her full support in being its leader. Yet if what Humphrey and Blake said was true…McGonagall had done something tremendous and kept it from her.

"I imagine you should ask her about that," said Humphrey. "Ethan Chen is a prisoner, so we will require that he is released to us as well if we are to agree with the ceasefire. But there is more: we don't just require the boy; we also require his memories, untouched,"

Blake began speaking in a stiff, clinical tone. "My agency has reason to suspect that Ethan Chen possesses information of vital importance to Britain's national security. It may be sealed behind a Memory Charm, but in that case there is still a decent chance to extract them with enchantment-dispelling techniques. However, that will require time in the range of several days. Therefore this time, we will not simply accept a day of questioning, as we did with the Ministry officers. We want custody of Mr. Chen so we may question him at our discretion. And Ethan Chen's memories cannot have been erased or altered, whether it be by the Ministry or the Order," Blake's gaze hardened behind his glasses. "If we find that the information in his mind has been tampered with, when I'm afraid that the British government will have to withdraw its commitment to the ceasefire,"

"Minister Cadogan believes we have committed to the deal and will announce the ceasefire in three days," said Humphrey. "But of course, we can renegade on that deal as we please, and that _will_ happen if we do not receive the boy, with his memories intact, within those three days,"

Humphrey sat up and glared at Hermione. "So the fate of your people is up to you, Mrs. Weasley. Contact the Order of the Phoenix at Hogwarts school and have them deliver the boy to MI7. We will discuss details of the handover once they agree,"

Hermione couldn't speak; her thoughts were a tempest of clashing waves – she couldn't conceivably reject the one chance for a ceasefire they have ever received since the beginning of the war. But to accept it meant she had to surrender an innocent boy to MI7, to face enchantment-dispelling techniques that could destroy his mind.

"…What will become of the boy after you're done with him?" asked Ron softly.

Blake turned to him to reply. "Due to our mutual relationship with the CIA, we are obligated to extradite him to the US where he will face charges for multiple crimes, including computer intrusion, extensive property damage, reckless endangerment, bank fraud, extortion, forgery, and the theft and dissemination of government secrets,"

How could a young boy have committed such a list of grievous crimes? Hermione remembered faintly that he was part of a vigilante group that targeted organized crime, but the details were a year old in her memories and many other things consumed her thoughts at the time. She looked down at the photograph; the boy didn't attempt to smile at all, he only stared away off-centre with stone in his eyes. It wasn't entirely inconceivable; after all, Lord Voldemort committed murder under the nose of all Hogwarts and got away with it when he was only fifteen.

"Well, Mrs. Weasley? Do we have your cooperation? Or do you need some time to consider?" Humphrey spoke with an air of finality, signalling that their meeting was coming to an end.

"…Yes, I need some time," Hermione said emptily, and handed the photo back to Blake. She only said it to be cautious; there wasn't much, intellectually, to think about. It was a choice between one boy's life against the prospect of peace for all Muggles and wizards in Britain.

"Very well. Contact us any time when you have your answer," said Humphrey, peering at her downcast form. He then released a breath and gazed out a window for a moment.

"You know, Prime Minister Bradbury was a close friend of mine," He began wistfully. "Occasionally, he hinted to me about secrets stressing him that I didn't and wasn't allowed to know about. I assumed that he was speaking about top secret intelligence on terrorist groups. Now I know better on what he was referring to,"

"His death was a horrible way to go – he did not deserve it. But that can be said of a lot of deaths. Both main parties, Labour and Conservative, speak of mental magic as this unprecedented security risk to the integrity of our society. But honestly, I can't count the number of security holes there are in my safety, or that of my staff. No matter how hard we try to protect ourselves, death is always…too easy. The kind of death we fear most is the kind that is unjust, the kind that strikes without warning or reason. And that fear cripples us. It is an immutable paradigm of human history,"

"I do not wish to inflict any kind of unjust harm on Ethan Chen. But I cannot make any promises because I have a duty to prevent unjust harm from befalling my people. You have the same duty as well, and you face the same choice as I. You can choose to accept your duty, or pass it on to Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts, who may decide matters for herself anyway. You used to be in the Wizenhoose – a member of parliament in the Ministry of Magic, am I correct?"

"…Yes," Hermione replied.

"Well, now you've made the transition from politician to leader. You don't get to just advocate for justice anymore. You have to administer it. And that, I can tell you from experience, is a little harder. All world leaders are killers. That is also an immutable paradigm of human history. Good day, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley,"

Humphrey stood up and exited the room. Blake stood up after him.

"The Prime Minister and I have matters to attend to. My agents will escort you back to your suite. Good day, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley,"

Blake followed Humphrey out of the room. Ron and Hermione made their way out of 10 Downing Street, back to the limousine, and returned to their hotel suite. The time went by in an instant. They said nothing through the entire journey.

Once they were through the door of their suite, with MI7 out of earshot, Ron turned her around.

"Hermione, everything the Prime Minister said at the end – he was just trying to confuse the issue,"

"Yes, but he was right. I have to make a choice," She went to her room and pulled out the two-way mirror from her cabinet. "I'm calling McGonagall…and telling her to hand over Ethan Chen."


	19. Chapter 19 - The Knights of Walpurgis

Chapter 19 – The Knights of Walpurgis

Jake took another sip of his beer. He was only a social drinker, and so was already feeling tipsy after his first pint. "Hey, where the others go?" he said, looking around the bar.

"They went to check that strip club, remember? We turned it down," answered Tony, seating across him at their outdoor table. "They probably think that we're gay now,"

"Oh, that would be great news for my dad," said Jake with a snort. "He'll be thrilled,"

"Uh-huh. So what's your dad like as a person?" asked Tony curiously.

Jake shook his head. It made him a little dizzy. "It's not smart for any soldier to bad-mouth the Chief of Staff of the Army,"

"Ah. Okay then," said Tony. "Hey, if you just tell the guys that you don't talk to your dad, I'm sure they'll be less scared to hang out with you,"

"Nah, it's not them, it's me. I could stand to be more talkative," Jake took another sip of his beer.

Tony took a swig of his own beer, and they passed a few moments of silence. Unlike Jake though, Tony wasn't the type that could handle long silences.

"So you have any siblings? Anyone else in the military dynasty?"

"I have a sister. She's a graphic artist,"

"Oh,"

"– and an anti-war protestor,"

"Oh," Tony hesitated a moment before asking more. "Like, what kind of anti-war protestor?"

Jake was sharing a lot more than he would have sober, but it was fine. Tony was his steadfast buddy during their days in the Operator Training Course, and only with his help did he manage to pull through that hellish programme.

"The kind that wants unilateral nuclear disarmament for the U.S.," Jake sighed. The alcohol in his system enhanced the melancholy he felt every time he thought about it. "We talk sometimes. But it always ends with the same argument about nukes and wars and military spending. She never liked the constant moving every few years when we were young, and of course, dad never being around," He tried to take another sip from his mug to find that it was empty. "Honestly, I don't really know why I'm here – of course I want to serve my country and all that, but it doesn't feel like enough of a reason,"

Tony looked seriously at Jake. He put his own beer aside and faced Jake straight-on.

"Dude, no one passes OTC without a reason. You wouldn't have made Detachment Commander if you didn't," He stroked his chin and thought for a bit. "I think I know why you're here. You want to know whether or not the world's a dangerous place, how much it takes to protect the peace. You want to know whether the constant moving and dad never being home was for a good reason,"

Jake was pretty sure Tony was being biased and far off base in his assessment, but let out a chuckle to humour him. "I didn't know you were a shrink, Tony. What are you doing in Delta Force?"

"Family issues fucked up my grades in high school. So I signed on. I guess the main reason I'm here is so I don't have to be over there," Tony shrugged. "Family, am I right?"

"You can't choose your family," remarked Jake.

"Who needs family, eh? We're lone wolves," Tony poured him a new mugful of beer from the pitcher, and they clinked mugs to their mutual loneliness.

" _Jake, what are you doing?!"_ And the sound of gunfire rattled in his ears, in sync with the recoil pressing into his shoulder.

* * *

Every time Jake went on an operation, he asked himself the same question: _Why do I fight?_ And he drew his strength from his answer. _Because the world is a dangerous place. Peace must be protected._

"ETA is fifteen minutes, so I'll be brief," said Lt. Colonel Paul. "Knights have attacked one of the U.K.'s nuclear warhead storage sites. We're the closest countermagic team, so we're going in first," He had to raise his voice to be heard over the plane engines of the Lockheed Hercules they were in.

"This is the storage site, RNAD Coulport," He pointed to a map clipped to a whiteboard, showing a large compound of winding roads and dispersed buildings. "This is the main support building, which the Knights have occupied," He pointed to a small building near the southwest corner of the compound. "There are thirty-five site personnel inside, currently held hostage by an unknown number of Knights. Royal Navy forces from the Clyde Naval Base have the place surrounded, but only you folks are going in there. Don't mind them; they're not going to be much help. Your mission is to secure the building with lethal force. Expect heavy resistance,"

"Any sign of Aurors?" asked Andy, seated beside Jake along the wall of the copter.

"No. And not likely," Paul replied. "The Knights threw up _Fidelius_ over the building, so the Ministry of Magic can't detect their activity. That doesn't matter to us though, since we already know where the place is. So no wizards to do your work for you this time,"

"Damn," muttered Andy.

"We're dropping you straight into the compound. Due to _Fidelius_ , the whole building will be invisible to you, until you step into the spell's field. Then the spell will lose its mental effect on you, but you will have zero radio contact with Control or anyone outside the field. If the op goes pear-shaped, regroup outside the field,"

Paul continued their mission briefing, detailing where the site personnel were most likely to be, and the best route for each team to take through the building. But before he could finish, the plane's navigator came down from the cockpit to inform them that they were approaching the drop point.

Jake scrunched his face, trying to contain his excitement. The wolf inside him – it looked forward to the coming battle, for the chance to rip some wizards limb from limb.

The rear door of the plane opened and the whole cargo compartment filled with the roaring whistle of the air outside. Jake's troop of nine stood up and trotted to the edge of wide open sky. The early morning was a painterly clash of blue and orange, the sun's light barely seeping up from the horizon. Below, tens of thousands of feet away on the ground, was a small peninsula tucked deep in the craggy coastline of West Scotland. Along the peninsula was the storage facility of RNAD Coulport, a patch of cleared ground and tiny buildings. There was an explosives handling jetty, a nuclear warhead process building, and sixteen bunkers for sixteen of the U.K.'s Trident nuclear missiles. On the southwest corner of the facility was a cluster of support buildings; of all the places they could have hit, the Knights chose the one part of the compound that had no chance of holding any deadly warheads.

"Godspeed, operators," yelled Paul over the wind.

One by one, they leapt off. The ground beneath Jake grew steadily towards him, and the chilling air whipped past his ears, drowning out all other sound. In his previous experiences with HALO jumps, Jake needed to breathe a tank of 100% oxygen during the plane ride, and take another tank with him during the free-fall. But his new werewolf body didn't need either of those things to survive the thin atmosphere of high altitude. He learnt that and much more about his newfound powers during their month-long training programme.

The troop shifted from their belly-down position to a head-down position, speeding their descent as they aimed as well as they could for their area of operations: the conspicuously empty space near the centre of the support building cluster, surrounded by a ring of soldiers positioned behind various cover. The troop hit the asphalt ground of the carpark surrounding the empty space; as they did, a jeep full of Royal Navy officers drove up to them.

"You're from the Wolf Team, right?" a warrant officer stepped out of the jeep to speak to Jake. "What do you need from us?"

"Maintain comms with our HQ, provide sitrep from outside. Other than that, just stand by," Jake removed his parachute rig and ran with his troop towards the ring of soldiers. As they approached, Jake could hear with his enhanced hearing some of the soldiers' comments.

"Bloody hell, that's the werewolf unit,"

"Woah, they comin' in fast,"

"They're not transformed yet,"

"They're still operating in the middle of the DoJ investigation?"

"What were the Yanks thinking? Flipping werewolves – it's incurable, innit?"

Jake released a low growl as he ran past the soldiers' perimeter. The wolf inside him wanted to do more, like knock into one of the jeeps the soldiers took cover behind, but he pointed the wolf back to the mission at hand.

"Unnatural. Bloody dangerous. I hope someone goes to jail for allowing this,"

Jake sped forward to the front of the troop; he didn't need to hear any more drivel about how 'wronged' he was by the U.S. government in a programme that he willingly signed up for. As he closed towards the centre of the empty plot, his brain itched for a second, and suddenly the empty land replaced itself with a three-storey admin building. They were now within the field of the Knights' Fidelius Charm.

Jake's troop slowed down as they entered the front lobby and raised their rifles in caution. The lights were off, but there was light streaming in from the windows; more than enough visibility for their enhanced eyesight. The room was pristine; no sign of combat. The clerk at the front desk was motionless, head lying over his terminal's keyboard. Jake checked his pulse – he was unconscious. He then pushed the clerk upright to check for signs of injury – none.

"Stunned," Jake said aloud.

"Same here," said Benjamin, kneeling over two more officers lying in the front adjoining hallway. "Sorcery-level Stunner, I think,"

Jake nodded. "We've seen this MO before. They're looking for something specific," He looked down at his cold iron magic detector watch, its needle pointing forward and almost vertically upwards in its dome-shaped dial; the Knights were on one of the upper floors.

"Alright team, let's take these bastards down," They split into three fireteams of three, one to the left, one to the right, and Jake's fireteam forward. Jake's team ascended a stairwell to the third floor. They entered a wide coworking space filled with office cubicles, and passed by about a dozen more unconscious officers as they crept silently onwards.

" _Legilimens!"_

Jake heard it coming from the northwest. He and his team moved towards it – approaching a closed door into an office room.

"Ah, finally. Found it," The same voice spoke again. It was a deep, almost bestial rumble, dipped in satisfaction.

Jake signalled his team to halt several yards from the door; they spread out and took cover behind cubicles. Jake activated his radio and whispered. "Alpha 1, contact. At least one target on third floor," he said, his voice transmitting over radio to the rest of the troop through his throat microphone.

"What's the play?" asked Andy, crouching across an aisle from Jake.

"Close quarters," They couldn't risk firing into the office from range, as they might hit site personnel inside. They were going to have to rush in. In the past, Jake could never get the jump on wizards, since they possessed detection magic like Foe-Glasses or Sneakoscopes. But their newly-issued assault vests of mithril chainmail could deflect such magic, granting them their current advantage.

"Wait," The man in the office spoke and paused. "We have company,"

As fast as his arm could swipe down, he flipped the switch of his Anti-Warp Field Generator, strapped to his belt. Andy and Benjamin did the same.

"Engage!" shouted Jake.

Jake charged for the door; his plan was to kick it open and toss in a flashbang – but upon kicking the door, it stopped against something immovably heavy on the other side. He grabbed the doorknob and ripped off the entire lock; behind the door was a solid stone wall.

"We have what we came for – we leave now!" shouted the deep voice. Through the stone wall, Jake heard an explosion, followed by running footsteps; someone had just blasted a hole in a wall and escaped through it.

Jake bolted right and turned the corner, going around the office. He entered another large coworking area and spotted them – three Knights of Walpurgis fleeing at Hasted speed, a blur of black robes. Andy and Benjamin were ahead of him already in pursuit; they opened fire at the wizards' backs and the room rang with the sound of bullets ricocheting off their Barriers. Jake sped up and joined the chase behind his team.

"Alpha 1, contact! Three tangos, third floor. In pursuit," Benjamin announced over the radio.

One of the Knights pointed his wand behind him and fired an ink-black sludge that spread over the floor. Andy, who was closest on the Knights' heels, stepped on it and fell forwards. He was stuck on all fours, unable to pull himself up despite his werewolf strength. Benjamin stopped to help his comrade, but couldn't do anything without stepping into the sludge himself.

"Nevermind me! Just go!" yelled Andy. Jake and Benjamin resumed pursuit; they leapt off desks and pillars to avoid the trail of sludge.

"Alpha 2, contact! Fower tangos, second floor!" Jake's radio scratched and screeched with the noise of combat. "Alpha 3, contact, contact! Three tangos, first floor!"

Bounding from atop the cubicle partitions, Jake fired upon the Knight casting the sludge. The cold iron rounds of his rifle tore through his Barrier and into his back – the Knight fell and tumbled across the floor.

The Knight ahead of him stopped and turned around. There was no mistaking the signature robes of the Knights: a matte, greyish black, with red trimmings. Emblazoned in the centre of the robe was their symbol: a forked cross, solid red, made out of four intersected wands.

The second Knight fired a non-projectile spell at Jake – his rifle exploded. Jake didn't feel a thing; he continued charging onward regardless of any shrapnel in his face, neck and chest. The Knight fired a jet of acid at him – Jake dodged, bounded off a pillar and tackled him to the ground.

Jake punched once, twice, thrice at the Knight's face – his Barrier shattered. The wolf in him snarled – his fingernails turned into thick, black claws. With his next swing he aimed for the Knight's neck, to rip open his throat.

A ball of fire rammed into Jake's chest and exploded; he flew a dozen feet and smashed through several cubicles with his back. His fatigues caught on fire with a flame that burned unnaturally hot, like the centre of a furnace. Instantly his sleeves were consumed like paper, melting into his flesh. The cloth of his assault vest evaporated, leaving only the mithril chainmail underneath. If it weren't for the vest, his whole torso would be covered in flame.

The wolf reacted instinctively, before Jake even understood what was happening – his skin hardened, grew thicker, turned into magic-resistant hide. His skin turned grey under a coarse layer of fur, shaking off the black sooty remains of his fatigue shirt. Jake rolled across the floor, rolled over the debris of workspaces several times over until the flames were put out. Just as he stopped, Benjamin flew through the air and crashed into a pillar behind him. Jake looked up.

"Pick him up and move. I'll handle this," said the third Knight, his voice deep with almost a regal quality to it. The Knight that Jake knocked down earlier picked up the first Knight that Jake shot down; he slung the shot Knight over his shoulder and they ran out of sight.

The third Knight was dressed differently from the other two: he wore full plated armour, gleaming silver, ornate with rune-like symbols. Over his armour he wore a tabard: a sleeveless medieval-style coat, black and red like the Knight's robes and emblazoned with the Knights' symbol. The man was tall and broad-shouldered and spotted a long mane of wavy red hair that brushed his shoulders. The epitomic image of a warrior.

 _Ares Graham._ The man fit the dreaded description known to all armed forces. The second-in-command of the Knights of Walpurgis.

Jake reached behind his back and pulled out his combat knives: one of cold iron and one of goblin silver. Benjamin came up beside him; his face was grey and his canine teeth had grown long and pointed. Jake's own face must look the same. Together they charged forward.

Graham raised the wand in his left hand and pointed down – the concrete floor before him cracked and fell apart. Jake fell on all fours to the second floor, in a wide hallway, and in the middle of crossfire between his troop and the Knights. One Knight straight ahead of him fired a Killing Curse at him – it struck his shoulder and dissipated against his magic-resistant hide. He would have died instantly if he hadn't been half-morphed.

Jake dived out of the way of the crossfire and assessed the battlefield. The Knights were retreating across the width of the building, while laying spell mines to slow the troop's pursuit. One mine, a bright red orb floating in the air, rushed toward Jake and detonated itself. Jake leapt out of the way but was still thrown into a wall by the blast. Two more mines closed in on Jake; he pulled out his sidearm and shot them both, causing them to detonate before they could reach him.

The second floor team reached Jake's position. Carlos pulled him to his feet. "Jake, you okay?"

"I'm fine. Cover me – I'm going in,"

Jake holstered his sidearm and ran down the hallway, bounding on all fours. The hallway was littered with dozens of spell mines – but covering fire from behind Jake took out the mines before they reached him. Jake closed in on the Knights just they reached the far end of the building.

The closest Knight spotted him and threw a fireball at him. Jake raised his goblin silver knife – the fireball was sucked into its blade and glowed orange. Jake threw the knife at the floor in front of the Knight – and it exploded in a burst of fire, knocking over the Knight and another beside him. Jake stretched out his hand and said _Accio_ in his mind; the silver knife, enchanted with a summoning spell, returned to Jake's hand.

The remaining two fleeing Knights stopped to aid their comrades. Jake's troop seized the opportunity of Jake's diversion to close the gap, all of them transformed into grey snarling death. The room erupted into a storm of deadly spells, flying debris and wolven roars. Jake saw Carlos pounce on Knight from twelve feet and tear at his face with his claws. Andy, who somehow managed to free himself and join the fray, ran forward and gunned down another Knight at point-blank range.

The scent of blood filled the air and rose the wolf in him. Jake closed in on one Knight on all fours. He turned tail and ran. Wizards were used to range combat; they had no concept of martial arts or close quarters combat. They panic and run when a dangerous foe, like a werewolf in mithril armour, closed in on them.

Jake grabbed the Knight and drew his cold iron knife across his throat. The blade stopped over the Knight's throat, held by his Barrier, but pushed through in a second. Jake pushed the sputtering Knight aside and hunted down another. He dodged his panicked spells with ease, readied to pounce for his throat, then –

A mountain of crumbling ceiling fell from above Jake and buried him. He heard the thud of someone landing above him, and then a roar of spewing fire. Jake's spine was snapped in two; protruding rebar from the concrete also pierced through his right lung and left thigh. His bones screeched in pain from a dozen fractures.

There was no choice, else he would perish from internal bleeding – Jake slackened his leash on the wolf. His body enlarged, his fur grew thicker; his chest strained against his mithril vest. He pushed up against the rubble and flung them away with elongated arms. His fractures were healed in a few seconds but his broken spine would need a minute to repair itself. Until it did, Jake could only watch his troop battle with Ares Graham.

Half the floor around them had collapsed and a towering wall of fire kept the troop from closing in. Stinging smoke filled the room. Graham shifted in and out of cover to dodge the troop's fire, while unleashing devastating fire magic to cover his fellow Knights making their escape. They leapt off a hole in a wall that led outside. Jake could hear the sound of combat through the hole; the Knights were engaging the Royal Navy outside, trying to break out of the range of Jake's troop's Anti-Warp Fields.

Joshua from the second team leapt over a huge chasm and through the wall of fire. His body on fire, he rushed at Graham.

Graham reared back his right arm – and in his hand materialized an enormous sword. He thrust forward – and it pierced Joshua's chest straight through his mithril vest and out his back. Graham lifted Joshua on his sword and flung his flaming body aside. Graham's sword – his notorious claymore – gleamed silver and spotless, with not a spatter of blood.

Carlos, who had approached from behind cover, leapt at Graham's left side; Graham turned and slashed across his chest. The blade cut through Carlos' vest and werewolf hide like it was water. Then in a fluid follow-up, Graham pointed his wand to Carlos' chest and blasted him away with a point-blank fireball.

"Graham's mage-level! Back! Back! Fire at range!"

"Cool down! Zero-morph, zero-morph!"

The troop continued firing at the fleeing Knights and trying to flank them from range, but Graham kept them back with fireballs with explosive power of RPGs. The bullets that connected to Graham clattered against his Barrier like rain on a car roof – from the brightness of its sparks, it was still less than half depleted.

The last fleeing Knight leapt out of the hole in the wall; they had also evacuated those Knights that had been injured. Only Graham remained. He raised a stone wall to block the troop's fire and ran for the exit.

There was no chance that Jake could take on Graham alone, but the wolf didn't listen; only rage existed in his mind. As soon as he regained control of his legs, he burst out of the rubble and charged him. Graham turned and swung his sword – Jake ducked under the blade, but came to face Graham's wand pointed in his chest. A fireball met Jake's chest and blasted him into a pillar. Immediately he got up and continued the chase while patting out the flames on his hide.

Graham leapt out of the escape hole and Jake leapt right after him. As Graham hit the ground, Jake raised his knives and plunged them at Graham's shoulders. The blades bounced off his Barrier, but the flash was dimmer – the Barrier was weakening.

Up ahead, there was no sign of any combat at the perimeter the Royal Navy set up; the Knights had managed to break through and Disapparate. The Navy forces gathered in front of Graham and opened fire.

Graham cast a blue screen of light from his wand, blocking the gale of bullets in front of him. Then he turned and swung at Jake with his sword. Jake dodged and braced for the follow-up from his wand, but it didn't come. Graham's wand was busy blocking the constant fire from the Royal Navy behind him. Graham faced Jake with his sword held in a defensive stance and backed away towards the Royal Navy perimeter.

Jake rushed Graham with a flurry of attacks with his knives. He slashed and thrusted faster than any human could possibly follow, yet Graham parried all his attacks with greater speed and skilled swordsmanship. Suddenly Jake was on the defensive against Graham's attacks; each swing Jake parried was a hammer blow to his shoulders. Then Graham's sword glowed orange – he swung down and Jake blocked it with crossed knives. The sword unleashed an explosion of fire and the blast knocked Jake to the ground. When he looked up he saw Graham pointing his sword down over his heart.

Jake screamed internally for his body to move, but in that moment realized it was already too late; Graham would easily track his retreat and pierce his heart. It was over.

A swarm of cold iron bullets bombarded Graham; they shredded his Barrier and punctured countless holes in his silver armour. The blue shield from his wand shattered, and more bullets shredded him from the back. The firing seemed to go on forever – Jake raised his arms to shield his face from the ricochet. Finally the firing stopped. Graham staggered, took one step backward, then another. Jake thought for a moment that he would die standing; then he fell on his back, motionless.

Jake's troop ran up to him. Joshua pulled Jake to his feet. They said nothing, just giving him a minute to cool down. The hair on his skin began to recede and his body shrank back to normal size. In the distance, he spotted Carlos running to the Royal Navy, presumably to inform them that the building was clear and to report to HQ outside the range of _Fidelius._

The rest of Jake's troop emerged from the building and they gathered in a circle around the corpse of Graham. The Royal Navy was now entering the building to evacuate the personnel inside. All that was left for Jake's troop was to wait for their ride home.

"God…this is Ares Graham? The stories weren't fucking kidding,"

"Fucking mage. How many of these fuckers are there?"

Jake went up to Graham's body and picked up his wand from the blood-soaked ground. Twelve and three-quarter inches, made of mahogany wood. He pocketed it. Andy picked up Graham's claymore; he had to crouch down and lift it with both hands.

"The hell, this thing is literally like five hundred pounds," He pulled the sword upright and pushed its tip slightly into the ground. The blade was intimidatingly long, over forty inches; its guard and pommel were gold, and its grip a bright red mahogany same as the wand.

Jake smelled something coming from Graham's body. It was burning flesh. He could hear it as well, the sizzling sound of grilling meat. The cold iron bullets in his body – they were absorbing magic and converting it into heat.

"God, he's regenerating," Jake said.

"What? Is that even possible?"

Even if Graham was a werewolf, there was no way he should be alive enough to regenerate; his body was bled out, there were several holes through his head. But Jake had seen one wizard recover from fatal wounds before, and he wasn't going to take chances with that again.

Jake pulled out his sidearm. "Everyone, empty all your cold iron rounds into Graham!"

The whole troop opened fire, reloaded and fire again, filling the body with all their cold iron bullets to stop the regeneration. After every round was spent, they waited; the smell was growing stronger, the burning was increasing.

"Benjamin," said Jake. "Contact HQ and call for an adamantine cage ASAP. The ones used to contain us during a full moon," Benjamin nodded and ran off.

A new smell filled the air: iron, molten iron. The cold iron bullets were absorbing so much magic that they were melting, which broke their absorption properties.

Molten iron seeped out of Graham's body, pushed out by mending flesh. The innumerable bullet wounds began to close. Out of ammo, Jake's troop could only watch in horror.

"We need to chop him up," Andy raised Graham's sword and approached the body. But its regeneration accelerated as the cold iron seeped out of him. The wounds closed up in a second, and Graham rose up on one knee – his sword flew out of Andy's grip and into Graham's. He swung – straight through his neck. Andy's head fell to the ground.

Time slowed to a crawl as Graham stood up. "Death…is too weak to hold me," Graham spoke through a smile of blood-stained teeth. His armour was ridden with holes, his coat was caked in blood, but he had not a scratch on his flesh. "Now, who has my wand?" He swept his gaze through the werewolves and rested it on Jake.

The troop rushed as one, transforming. Jake charged as well, the wolf unchained.

It happened in the span of a second. Graham lunged forward, and his body grew. All at once, his skin turned into dark tan hide; his nails turned into claws; his hair turned into a dark red mane, and bat-like wings sprouted over his shoulders.

It was as large as a bus; a gargantuan lion with leathery wings. A black, armour-like carapace lined its back and limbs. At the end of its long tail was an enormous scorpion's stinger, covered in numerous spines like a porcupine's, each spine over a metre long. _A manticore._ Jake had read about them; they were one of the deadliest magical creatures in existence.

Its face was a grotesque mix of man and lion with primal yellow eyes. The face rushed Jake and opened its maw, lined with three rows of needle-sharp teeth. Teeth and cavernous mouth filled his vision – and closed down on him. Dozens of teeth skewered him from front and back like two beds of nails. Jake flailed, pushed pointlessly against the monster's mouth with his one free arm. All around was the sound of wolven snarls, and a rumbling, trumpet-like growl coming from the giant beast. Jake's vision was a spinning blur as the beast thrashed, but he caught streaks of grey – werewolves circling the manticore, tearing at his side, leaping onto his wings. The beast batted them away, rolled over the ground, swung its spiked tail. Then it rose on its hind legs and stomped on the ground.

A great shockwave of fire radiated from the stomp, throwing back all of Jake's troop. The manticore spread its wings, made a running start and took to the sky.

The beast paid no mind to the Royal Navy firing at it from below. Quickly the ground below Jake shrank away – they flew beyond the range of the storage site, beyond the range of the troop's Anti-Warp Fields. The manticore descended into a wooded area and dropped Jake's bleeding half-morphed body.

Graham shrank back to human form as instantly as he had turned into a manticore. He knelt down, reached for Jake's belt and crushed his Anti-Warp Field Generator in his palm. He then recovered his wand from Jake's pocket. He picked Jake up by his neck and pointed his wand at him.

" _Legilimens!"_

Jake shut down all his thoughts, tried with all his might to push Graham out, but with his body bleeding out, his mind was too feeble to resist. He felt terrible stings in his head, like clawed fingers thumbing through his brain.

"Really? Son of Chief of Staff of the Army? Perhaps you will be useful,"

And then the world shrank on itself – he felt like his body squeezed itself into a tiny ball and careened down a twisting, winding chute. The world flew by in a streak of colours – the g-force was too much for his failing consciousness. His world turned to black.

* * *

 _The Ministry and Hogwarts_

 _During February of this year, as Muggle forces toppled MACUSA and rounded up wizards across the U.S., Ethan Chen fled to the U.K. with his wizard uncle._

 _His uncle contacted Headmistress McGonagall of Hogwarts and requested that she take him in with the batch of Squib students that were newly admitted to the school in January, for his protection._

 _However, the Ministry of Magic learnt of Ethan Chen's presence in the U.K. as well as his reputation as a hacker, and so they requested his assistance in the war._

 _Ethan Chen agreed and assisted the Ministry, providing information about Muggle technology, setting up the Ministry's computer network, and conducting surveillance on Muggle Allied communications._

 _Close to the start of school term, the Office of Ministry Intelligence deemed that it had learnt enough from Ethan Chen that his services were no longer necessary; thus his schedule was cleared to attend Hogwarts, still posing as a Squib to hide his status as an informant._

 _But Ethan Chen was not a Squib or an ordinary Muggle, so he did not fade quietly into the background of Hogwarts…_

The article went on to describe the incident with Baldur Farley and O'Neill, Ethan's battle with Crawford, rumours of him joining the Order of the Phoenix and his promotion to assistant teacher. Lily skimmed through details she already knew and reached the last few lines:

 _At the end of this long history we find a boy intelligent beyond his years, who has committed many wrongful actions yet has also dedicated his life to aiding others at great personal risk; and while he may be siding with wizardkind to escape Muggle law, he has still provided the Ministry with valuable assistance._

 _If he cannot serve as a teacher, perhaps he can still be of help in the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix or the Office of Ministry Intelligence._

 _Whether or not he is qualified to teach Muggle Studies may be a smaller question compared to what he represents to us wizards in this time of war and uncertainty._

 _Ultimately, it is the students of Hogwarts who will decide Ethan Chen's fate, and this is perhaps for the best, as they represent the hope and future of wizardkind._

Lily usually loved to read her mother's articles; when she was a Quidditch correspondent, she delivered engaging and sharp analysis of individual plays as well as the big picture. When she became a political correspondent, she routinely brought hard-hitting commentary on the injustices of wizarding world, never pulling her punches on anyone.

This article however, felt flat. It had none of the usual 'punch' of her usual articles. And it wasn't like her to be vague and ambivalent like in the last paragraph. If Lily was reading this right, it meant that her mother wasn't sure what to make of Ethan. That wasn't very good for Lily, because she really wanted an educated opinion on that subject.

She went back to the top of the article and re-read it.

 _The Life of Ethan Chen – Criminal Hacker to Teacher of Hogwarts_

 _CAELORUM - Chatter abounds in Hogwarts and beyond about a fifteen-year-old Muggle boy who had last Thursday become the school's newest assistant teacher for Muggle Studies._

 _The students of Hogwarts are currently staging a boycott of his lessons in protest of his appointment; they as well as their parents are also gathering signatures in a petition to the Hogwarts Board of Governors to have the boy dismissed from his post, due to concerns over his ability to teach._

 _Chairman of the Board of Governors, Diarmuid O'Neill, considers the appointment of Ethan Chen a gross dereliction of duty, meant as an act of spite as part of a long-running conflict between him and the Headmistress for control over Hogwarts' policies._

 _Despite the ongoing feud, Headmistress McGonagall commented on Monday that she appointed Ethan Chen as Muggle Studies professor solely due to him being 'the most qualified person to teach the subject currently available'._

 _In order for Ethan Chen to be dismissed, the Board of Governors must approve by majority vote an Order of Dismissal, which may be requested by the Headmaster, the High Inquisitor, or a petition by a sufficient number of students, teachers and parents._

 _The current petition to have Ethan Chen dismissed has yet to be formally sent to the Board; if it is, both Ethan Chen and representatives of the petition will have to attend a hearing to present their cases to the Board._

 _Leader of the petition, Head Boy James Potter, stated Monday that he would prefer that Ethan Chen resign in light of the school's unanimous opposition, in order to save time and trouble for all parties involved._

 _The story of who Ethan Chen is and how he came to Hogwarts is a long and extraordinary one; and much of it that can only be known though Muggle reports still leaves behind much mystery._

 _But hopefully the story we know is enough to draw a reliable picture of the kind of boy he is, and know if he is qualified to be a teacher of our children at Hogwarts._

 _Beginnings_

 _Ethan Chen Xin Ren was born in Chinatown, Manhattan, to parents Tom and Julie Chen, who owned an ice cream parlour, and had a sister Carol Chen two years younger._

 _Ethan Chen entered the ninth grade of U.S. high school at age twelve, attending classes with peers two years older; in interviews conducted by Muggle journalists on his former classmates, he was remembered as a quiet and timid boy, who nonetheless achieved stellar grades and taught himself computer programming._

 _The boy reportedly developed a crush on a girl named Maryann Mallory, and tried to impress her. However, his efforts were rebuffed as the girl was already seeing another boy._

 _Ethan Chen sought revenge on Maryann for being jilted; with his knowledge of computer programming, he 'hacked' – gained remote control and access to – all her Muggle devices, such as her cell phone and personal computer._

 _He then hacked into a popular social networking website called Facebook – a service available on the Internet that allows computer users to communicate with friends – and published all her private information and correspondences on the site. Any Muggle who attempted to use the website would instead be taken to her personal account, where he had put up her cell phone text history, private photographs, and other personal information._

 _The website was fixed in short order, but not before millions had accessed details of Maryann's personal life, humiliating the girl on a global scale. Ethan Chen was caught by Muggle investigators and indicted for computer intrusion and infliction of emotional distress; he became a pariah in his school as the media supported Maryann as an innocent victim._

 _Ethan Chen stopped attending school two weeks later, effectively dropping out six months from when he first attended school. That same day, his parents and younger sister died in a hit-and-run car accident. Ethan Chen ran away from his home and vanished; police searched for him to no avail._

 _Maryann and her family moved out of New York City two weeks later, without a word since to any of their contacts; journalists and police have tried but failed to locate their current whereabouts. Muggle police currently consider the family as missing persons._

 _Three months later, Muggle camera footage revealed that Ethan Chen had resurfaced as part of a group of vigilantes known as the Marauders, styling himself with the handle of 'Greyscale'._

 _The footage captured him outside of a police station, tapping on his cell phone. The next day the Marauders released evidence to the public that implicated policemen in covering up a drug ring._

 _Specializing in grand theft and blackmail, the Marauders committed numerous crimes against the Muggle mafia of the U.S. and South America; they also uncovered several financial scams and scandals of corruption, as well as disrupting Muggle terrorist operations._

 _In September of last year, Ethan Chen hacked into the computers of the CIA's Counter-Magic Division and leaked documents of its cooperation with MACUSA in maintaining the Statute of Secrecy._

 _Since then, there have been no reports of activities from the Marauders or any of its members, leading members of the media to speculate that they had disbanded…_

All around the Great Hall, students were, like Lily, pouring over their copies of the Daily Prophet, some reading from beside or over their friends' shoulder. The Hall was abuzz with shocked whispers over the revelations of her mother's article. Ethan was nowhere to be seen at the High Table; he had likely decided to take breakfast inside his own office. Lily herself had not touched any breakfast; her mind was just consumed with questions.

What on earth happened to the Mallory family? Did Ethan's family really die so suddenly, and why was Ethan's response to run away from home the same day? What things did he do as part of the Marauders, and why didn't her mother provide more details on that? Who exactly were the Marauders, and who were their members besides Ethan?

 _The Marauders…it's just a coincidence, right?_ There was no way a Muggle vigilante group could have anything to do with her grandfather and his friends, who also called themselves the Marauders while they were a gang of troublemakers at Hogwarts.

And then there was what happened with the girl, Maryann Mallory.

"Wait, I don't get it – what exactly did he do to the girl?" said Delfina, reading the article to Lily's right.

"He outed all of her secrets," replied Jessamine, to Lily's left. "It's like, he copied the girl's diary and all of her letters and Flooed them to every fireplace in the Global Floo Network,"

"That's horrible," Delfina gasped. "That's way too far, no matter what she did to him,"

Lily's mind and body felt heavy like she was sinking into a noxious mire.

"It says no one can find the girl's family," remarked Jessamine.

"What do you think happened to them?" asked Delfina.

"I don't know…but it's too suspicious. Then there's his family, that's suspicious, too. What if…it wasn't a car accident?"

Lily stayed silent. Her head was too full of churning feelings for her to reply.

"Are 'car accidents' deadly? They don't seem to go that fast," said Delfina.

"They're deadly for Muggles – they don't have healing magic," said Jessamine. "Still, I don't think they can kill three people at once – at least, not by accident," she said ominously.

What was Jess doing? It was obvious from her tone what was implying, why didn't she just spit it out?

"You mean someone murdered them? Who –" Delfina's eyes widened. "You don't think…he did it?"

Jessamine nodded gravely. "He ran away right after and joined some criminal group. It's way too suspicious. The girl's family is missing, too. The Muggles can't find them. Maybe he did them in, too,"

Lily's two friends had just learnt that Ethan lost his family at twelve years old, and their first response was wondering if he killed them. Lily's blood was boiling, but still she said nothing. She was outnumbered, and all they said was speculation – nothing she wasn't guilty of thinking herself.

"My god," breathed Delfina. "Did we really talk to a murderer?"

"A serial killer," said Jessamine. "I knew he was creepy from the start. He's got to be – what do you call it – a psychopath. I hear that they're people who have no feelings –"

"Stop it."

"That's not what a psychopath is. Don't just say things that you have no clue about," Lily snapped at Jessamine. She then turned sharply on Delfina. "And you've said exactly zero words to Ethan,"

Her friends stared stunned at her.

"Ethan can be…scary, but he's not a bad person. A…" Lily paused, searching for her own thoughts. "A bad person wouldn't do the things he's done. He's not a _serial killer_ ,"

Ethan saved Hugo and Rose when he didn't have to. He helped Lily with Potions. He brought Rose, Scorpius and Iris back together. He took down Crawford for the Order. A psychopathic serial killer didn't do things like that. For everything that he had done, she should be grateful to him.

And yet, despite all that, gratitude wasn't what she felt. Lily suspected him, too. Mallory and any one of her family were obviously other suspects, and yet it was Ethan that she first thought of. She felt sick at herself.

"Hey, calm down. I didn't say he did it!" Jessamine reacted. "But like…I think he could've have if he wanted to. You can't say that about any of us. I mean, how can you know for sure he didn't? It's not like you know him very well either,"

"I don't," said Lily. "But I'm not sure of a lot of things, so…whatever," She didn't know the words to express how she felt, or at least, she couldn't express it eloquently enough to be convincing.

"Oh. Whatever then," Jessamine shrugged, then forked a couple of pancakes and started eating. Delfina similarly retreated into her plate. It looked like neither of them thought it was worth it to start another fight over Ethan. Lily turned the Prophet back to its front page and idly re-read the front article: ' _Knights attack nuclear storage site'._

"Hey, Lily,"

Greg, Brann and Rondel, from the same year, sat down across from Lily, Jessamine and Delfina.

"Hey," Lily replied.

Greg swept his hair back and stuck out his chest; he always had an awful tendency to hit on her, even after she started going out with Torrian.

"Mind if I borrow your Prophet? Heard there's some crazy news today,"

Lily handed it over. Greg laid down the front page for him and his friends to read. It didn't take them long to start commenting.

"Oh yeah, Knights versus werewolves!" cheered Brann.

"They killed one of them and captured another – sweet," remarked Rondel.

"It must've been Ares Graham," said Greg with glee. " _'Muggle reports indicate that Graham transformed into a manticore and flew away with a Wolf Team soldier'._ This confirms the rumours: Graham is a Mythic Animagus,"

"Awesome," said Brann. "I wonder how many Muggles he can kill per minute,"

"Mythic Animagi are mages, right?" said Rondel. "And mages are at least seven times stronger than wizards. So…eighty, maybe a ninety a minute, in a big city?"

"He's a Gryffindor, too. Awesome," Greg threw her a grin, inviting her to the conversation. "What do you think, Lily?"

Jessamine and Delfina turned to Lily; she could feel their worried looks telling her: _'Just leave it, Lily. It's not worth it.'_ Then she remembered hearing that Greg attacked Ethan out of nowhere by detonating a Healing Potion in his face.

"I hate the Knights, Greg," she said coldly.

Greg didn't seem to find that important. "It's okay, I don't mind. It's only cause your pop's fighting them now. He'll come around eventually,"

"No he won't," Lily said through clenched teeth. "My father will never support Dark wizards,"

"The Knights are the only ones still fighting for us," said Greg confidently. "All the Ministry is doing right now is sitting around waiting for the Muggles to take everything. But they'll come around, too, once the Knights show them how to win this war,"

In the back of her mind, Lily knew she shouldn't engage him in conversation, but she couldn't allow to him to have the last word. "And how are they going to do that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Greg pointed down at the headline of the front page. "All the Knights gotta do is steal some of these 'nuclear weapons' from the Muggles and use it against them. You remember what Crawford said 'bout how powerful they are. Just one or two in a big city and the Muggles will surrender immediately,"

Lily gaped at the flippant way he said it, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "How can you say that?" Her voice rose. "That will kill _millions_ of people,"

"Millions of Muggles," Greg corrected. "I mean, relative to how many of them there are, that's like nothing. Plus they've done it to themselves before, so they don't have a right to complain,"

Lily was so outraged that it stopped her breathing. "Are you – are you fucking serious? How do you even –" Her anger clogged in her throat; she couldn't understand, she couldn't fathom how someone could possibly think that way. "What…what's wrong with you?"

Greg frowned. "What's wrong with me? If anything, you're the one who's being weird. Why do you care so much about Muggles? What have they ever done for you?"

Lily knew – she knew that he was wrong. But she couldn't sort out exactly why. His words were a maze of assumptions and twisted logic that were utterly alien to her, and her own thoughts were a tangled mess that would just make her look stupid if she blurted them out. She had next to no experience forming and winning arguments. She wasn't smart like Rose or Ethan.

"I'm out of here," Lily stood up and left the Gryffindor table.

"Hey, wait up!" Greg stood as well and followed after her. "What're you doing after lunch, Lily?"

Lily spotted someone approach her from the far end of the table: her brother, James. He held a clipboard loaded with several sheets of parchment, which he pushed onto her.

"Lily, I want you to take this petition and get everyone in your class to sign it," He said in a business-man's tone. "And put your own signature on it as well, obviously,"

Her foul mood still boiling, she read the top sheet. _'Petition to the Ministry of Magic for a militia operation to retake the towns captured on October 3_ _rd_ _, 2022'._ The first two sheets was already filled with signatures and respective addresses – addresses of the towns that were captured in the Muggle offensive yesterday.

"We already have the signatures of all the displaced persons at Hogwarts," said James. "Others are working on getting signatures from all the students,"

Lily inwardly groaned at the chore of filling up another petition. Just yesterday, James already made her pass around the petition to have Ethan dismissed as a teacher. She did it because he asked her in front of her entire class. She still felt sick at herself for caving in like that.

"Retake the towns?" Lily remarked. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course," James said snappily. "How else are people going to get back their homes?"

"But…the Muggles have goblin-made gear now. It'll be harder, more dangerous than before," as she spoke, she could already see the shadow falling over James' face.

"The Ministry should ask the Knights for help," suggested Greg, from the other side of the table. "That way, not only will they succeed, they can counterattack their forces as well,"

James glared coldly at him. "The Ministry doesn't work with Dark wizards. Get lost, Greg. This conversation is for members of Hogwarts' Army,"

Greg pondered his options for a moment, then snorted.

"Whatever. You used to be cool, James. What happened to you?" Greg turned and walked away to re-join his friends.

 _How did he do that so easily?_ Lily thought. Perhaps she wasn't scary enough for her anger to actually intimidate people. Just another in a long list of things her brother was better at than her. Even before the war, before…he began to take everything seriously, he was still more naturally talented than her; even as he played pranks on Albus and her and poked fun at the teachers.

James returned to addressing her. "When you're done collecting signatures from your classmates, I want you to go to Hogsmeade during lunch, and collect signatures from the residents and displaced people. Go door-to-door, go to the shops, go to the Three Broomsticks. Take Rose, Hugo, and Torrian with you,"

"What? During lunch break? We can't cover Hogsmeade in that time," cried Lily. Lunch break was an hour long; even if they rushed through lunch, the four of them couldn't cover half of Hogsmeade before having to run back to class.

"Then cover as much ground as possible and go back after classes. Do the same thing tomorrow until you have every signature in Hogsmeade. Understand?"

"Can't you get more people on this?" Lily cried, exasperated.

"I don't have time for whining, Lily. Do you want to be useful to this war or not?"

Lily smothered her ineffectual anger. "Yes. Of course I do,"

"Good," James handed her four slips of parchment. "Gives these passes to the others to go through Hogwarts' gate. You guys know the village well. Make sure you get every last signature," He abruptly turned away and left.

Jessamine and Delfina came up behind her. "So what did he want?" asked Jessamine.

Lily didn't feel like answering her question. She would rather discuss something else. "Thanks for the back-up back there, you guys,"

They took a second to realize what she was referring to. "Well, you know those guys are knobheads. You shouldn't have talked to him at all," said Jessamine.

"They were making a dumb point anyway," added Delfina. "The Knights haven't managed to find any nuclear weapons in a year, why should they be able to now?"

Lily turned around to face them. "You backed me up when I went off on Farley. Why not back there with Greg's group?"

Jessamine crossed her arms at her. "Why not? You were just jumping down our throats over some little things we said about Ethan Chen. Now you know how we felt when you abandoned us,"

"You _still_ haven't gotten over that?" exclaimed Lily. "I already explained myself – I'm not apologizing again,"

"I don't know what you see in that guy, but it can't possibly be worth it," said Jessamine. "What about us? What about Torrian? Aren't we more important?"

"What kind of question _is that_? I don't see _anything_ in him! I just – argh!" With a great growl, Lily threw up her hands and stormed off, attracting a wave of turning heads as she left the Hall. As she stomped up the stairs to her dormitory, her anger slowly gave way to the shock and horror of what she just did. But with everything else going wrong with her life, she should have guessed that she would be losing her friends, too.

On the way to the Gryffindor Tower, she passed by the corridor that led to Ethan's office. Lily thought for a while about checking to see if he was there; she wanted to ask him about what happened in his past…but in the end she headed up to her dorm room. She was scared, but what she was scared of she wasn't sure. Was she scared of finding out he really was a murderer? Or was it something else?

Lily's morning classes for Tuesday were C.O.C followed by H.O.M. She didn't speak to Jessamine or Delfina during either class. Getting the petition filled was easy enough, as her classmates were eager to come up and pass it around. She partnered with Hugo for the day's C.O.C lesson in preparing meals for carnivorous beasts.

"You alright, Lily? I err, heard you walk out of the Hall at breakfast," said Hugo with a note of concern.

"I'm fine," said Lily, staring idly at her class assignment.

"What did you row about?"

Lily hesitated in her reply. "It's nothing,"

Professor Hagrid had kind of just thrown them the assignment of gutting and skinning a deer, after giving one demonstration that half of the class had been too squeamish to watch. Lily mused morosely at the dead deer in front of her, hanging off a skinning rack. Only a couple of pairs had dared to start on their own – the rest stood by with their knife in their hands until Hagrid came around to guide them through it.

Hugo continued looking concerned at her.

"Did you read your mom's article about Ethan?" He broached delicately.

"Yeah, I did,"

Hugo turned to stare at the dead deer as well. "It's hard to imagine what he's been through. Losing his family, living as a criminal, working for the Ministry, and now coming here…even our parents only had a slightly more exciting childhood,"

"…Exciting?" Lily echoed.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that," said Hugo, realizing what he said. "It's…definitely been more tough than exciting for him. He's lived a different life than we have. A whole other world,"

"I'll fuckin' gut you, Hayes!"

Baldur Farley pointed his skinning knife at Greg and his gang, gripping his wand in his other hand. Greg's gang pulled out their own wands, to which Farley's friends did the same.

"Come on then, Fagglepuff, I'm right here," Greg stepped forward and taunted, just before Hagrid shoved them away from each other.

Lily watched Hagrid berate both groups with some dull interest. "Hugo, Farley hasn't given you any trouble lately, has he?"

Hugo shook his head. "No, not anymore,"

"Because he's too busy fighting with Hayes' and O'Neill's group?" said Lily.

"Um, partly I guess. But I think mostly it's because he's afraid of Ethan," Hugo looked forlornly across the school grounds. "Even though Ethan has no real reason to defend me anymore. I haven't spoken to him in a while. Not since uh…he and Iris, which was partly my fault,"

"How was that your fault?" asked Lily, confused.

Hugo recounted how he had approached Ethan for help getting Rose back into the Chess Club and speaking to Scorpius again. That solved the mystery in Lily's mind on how Ethan got involved in that predicament in the first place.

"I think if I see him, I should apologize to him," said Hugo. "I made him do the 'dirty work' for me, and then pretty much abandoned him. I didn't have his back when he faced Crawford or when James started the boycott. Even if I was useless, I could have at least given him my support,"

Lily and Hugo stood in uncomfortable silence. Lily couldn't think of how to assuage Hugo, because of how much his guilt rang in herself.

"Lily! Hugo! That deer ain't gonna peel itself!" Hagrid rumbled from another skinning rack, catching them doing nothing. "Swallow yer guilt or wha'ever and just cut!"

Lily jolted and almost dropped her knife. She looked up at the deer's black frozen eyes. She'd eaten plenty of venison at school feasts and the dinner table, so it'd be hypocritical of her to object to skinning a deer just because it was unpleasant. With a deep breath, she inserted the tip of her knife into the deer's abdomen and sliced upward – its guts poked out through the slit. Lily reached in to cut out the connective tissue. The deer's guts fell off cleanly, like books from a bookshelf, and plopped into the bucket below it.

* * *

After C.O.C, Lily contacted Rose and Torrian via multi-mirror, telling them about James' task and to finish lunch early. For H.O.M class, Lily sat at the back rather than her usual seat between Jessamine and Delfina, further cementing the class's suspicion that they were currently fighting. H.O.M went by in a routinely forgettable haze; when the lunch bell rang, Lily headed to the Great Hall and ate her lunch as quick as possible at the tail end of the Gryffindor table.

She had eaten breakfast alone before, after an early morning run, and she had eaten dinner alone before, after an afternoon workout; but in all her four years at Hogwarts, Lily had never eaten lunch alone before. She could sit with a different group, but she didn't feel in the mood of talking to anyone. In previous cases, her great fear of being alone would override that feeling, but now…that fear seemed so pointless next to all her other fears and miseries.

Cleaning up her soup and bread, Lily went to find Rose, who she spotted sitting at the Ravenclaw table with her friend Erith. As she approached though, she realized that they were arguing.

"Don't tell me you're agreeing with him?" Erith said incredulously.

"I'm not – I'm not agreeing _with_ him," defended Rose, looking uncertain of her own words. "But it is a fact that the goblins are beginning to mass-produce anti-magic equipment for the Muggle military. If we continue to fight them by re-taking towns, we will lose our men and resources a lot sooner than they will. We can't win a war of attrition,"

"Then it's the Ministry's fault for playing a losing strategy," said Erith, her voice lowering darkly. "We have to strike at their command, force a quick surrender…like using their nuclear weapons against them,"

Rose cringed painfully, looking at her friend with widened eyes. "That's – that's too much,"

"We don't actually _have_ to use them; we could just detonate one in the ocean, to prove we have the capability, and threaten the Muggles with them to force a ceasefire," said Erith. "If they ignore the threat then…it's their own fault,"

Rose's brow furrowed as she cast her eyes down, thinking of a counterargument. "But what happens after the ceasefire? Do we continue to hold that threat over them for the rest of history? What about the future, of our relations with Mugglekind?" she spoke calmly and evenly. "Their animosity towards us will only grow, and that will force a conflict regardless of what we threaten them with. It's not a sustainable plan,"

Erith frowned with annoyance. "But isn't that the way that Muggle countries maintain peace with each other? Looks sustainable to me. In fact, it looks like the only real way to have peace,"

"…That's not true. At most, it only prevents war; it doesn't create peace. I just can't accept that kind of solution,"

"Well, your mother's way is obviously not working," Erith opened the copy of Daily Prophet in front of her and turned to the second last page. She pointed to a tiny article in the corner. "Apparently she was on television yesterday and even the Muggles missed it. Clearly they're not interested in hashing things out peacefully,"

Rose looked painfully down at the article.

"That Ethan Chen said it himself, didn't he?" continued Erith. "They're not going to leave us alone 'out of the kindness of their hearts'. Why would they when they have the upper hand? There's no peaceful way to end this. You and everyone else with the same opinion need to realize that so we can take the proper action to win this war,"

Rose looked up, about to respond, when she noticed Lily. She then stood up.

"I have to go. Hogwarts' Army stuff," Rose said softly.

"Hm. Sure," Erith waved her off and returned to eating.

As Rose approached, Lily gave her a wan smile. "Having friend problems too, huh?"

Rose returned an equally wan smile. "What did you argue about, with Jessamine and Delfina?"

If there was anyone she wanted to talk to about it, it was Rose, but there wasn't time right now. "Later. We gotta do this," Lily held up the petition clipboard. Scanning over the Hufflepuff table, Lily spotted Hugo and Torrian heading down the Hall together. She and Rose met up with them at the Hall entrance.

"Lily, I saw you arguing with your friends at breakfast; what happened?" Torrian asked concernedly.

"It's nothing," Lily replied.

"It can't be nothing," Torrian insisted. "Is it to do with the news today, about the Knight's attack? The whole school's really divided over the Knights,"

She had to give Torrian something or he'd give her that wounded look again. "Yeah it was about that. But I don't want to talk about it right now. Let's go," She led the way out of the castle and across the school grounds.

"Torrian, you led the families to their rooms last night, right?" asked Hugo, making conversation on their rather long trek to the gates.

"Right,"

"How many people do you think we have?"

"We have exactly a hundred and eighteen people right now," answered Torrian. "All of them signed James' petition this morning,"

"How are they doing?"

"They're doing fine – probably better than those staying in inns or tents in Caelorum. Heard an old couple having a row today while James and I went around the people's rooms. Also came across an Imperturbable room with a bunch of people together; looked like they having a serious discussion. They blew us off when we asked what they were talking about,"

"That sounds…strange," said Hugo.

The two of them continued to carry the conversation until they all reached the school gates: a large wrought iron gate flanked by two stone columns, guarded on top by great statued hogs with wings. Lily handed out the passes James gave her, and the gates swung open for them as they approached. They trekked down a long dirt path and stopped at the northern threshold of Hogsmeade village, just in front of its High Street.

"I suppose we should split up to cover ground faster," suggested Rose.

"Split into pairs? I'll go with Lily," Torrian said immediately.

Rose looked to Lily for her confirmation. Lily, of course, nodded. She would have liked to go with Rose so they could talk, but Torrian _was_ her boyfriend.

"Then…Hugo and I will take the west half of town. You two take the east. That alright? Okay then. We'll meet back here at five minutes to one,"

Rose conjured her own clipboard and took half of the petition papers from Lily. She and Hugo the started down the right half of High Street and entered the first store.

"So what happened between you and your friends?" Torrian asked immediately. "What did they say?"

"It's nothing," Lily said reflexively. "It's not a big deal. We'll make up by tomorrow or something,"

"But what happened?"

"Later. We got work to do," Lily walked towards the first shop on the left of the street. Torrian followed beside her.

"You're not your usual self today, so it's clearly affecting you," said Torrian, sounding testy. "I can't help you if you don't tell me your problems,"

"I can handle it," said Lily. "What is my 'usual self', anyway?"

"Cheerful," Torrian said with a straight face, and raised a palm into the air like he was about to recite a poem. "Always brightening people's day with your smile. Lifting everyone's spirits with your sense of humour and enthusiasm for everything,"

Be it when they were alone or surrounded by schoolmates, Torrian was never afraid to sing her praises like she was the most amazing human being alive. She used to blush and consider it the most flattering thing. Over time it made her uncomfortable to hear him carry such a lofty image of her.

"It's the reason James always puts you in charge of the petitions," Torrian continued. "People are drawn to you, willing to listen to you. Your smile is your greatest strength,"

"Okay, okay, that's enough," Lily held up her hands, gesturing him to stop. She couldn't take much more of that misplaced adoration.

 _So that's my greatest strength, huh?_ It didn't sound like a real talent, at least not compared to turning into a dragon, painting, cooking, leading the student body, being the smartest student in school, or a criminal hacker genius master of manipulation. _Smiling._ _That's it. And I can't even keep that up properly._

"I mean every word that I – hey, where's your ring?"

Torrian pointed to her left hand. She looked down and a jolt went through her; she had forgotten to put her ring on today before meeting Torrian. She pulled the tungsten carbide ring from her pocket: Torrian's gift to her on her birthday.

"Why aren't you wearing it?" Torrian asked.

Lily put it on. "I'm wearing it now,"

"Why _weren't_ you wearing it?" Torrian lifted his left hand to show his matching golden ring.

Lily winced; once again she had upset Torrian with her tactless ungratefulness. "I'm sorry, I…It's embarrassing,"

"Embarrassing? You think our relationship is embarrassing?" He said with a pained look.

"No!" Lily said immediately. "It's just – no other couple has rings, Torrian! It's too soon!"

Right after she said it, she thought she might have gone too far. She waited with bated breath for Torrian's reaction.

Torrian's shoulders slumped, his head hung down. "Yeah, I suppose. James said as much. But I couldn't think of what else to get you for your birthday. You already have everything else,"

"Where on earth do you get that idea?" Lily asked, bewildered. Then she remembered that she had a famous, loving family, while Torrian's father left him and his mother died when he was ten.

"Hey, I like the ring. Really. It's really cool," Lily reached deep for the gratefulness that had to be in her somewhere if she wasn't a terrible person. "Especially the enchantment that makes them move together. I think it's a really…meaningful touch. Let's…do this thing first, alright?" She waved the petition in her hand.

Torrian looked up and took in her apologetic mien. "Yeah. Alright,"

They went door-to-door down High Street collecting signatures. Each stop went by fairly quickly as the residents needed no convincing after hearing what the petition was about.

"Lily, you don't look very enthusiastic about this petition," Torrian said after several stores, a third of the way down High Street. "You seem almost sad that we're doing well so far,"

"Huh? Well…" Lily thought quickly about how to deflect his suspicion. "What about you? You're not very excited either,"

"Ah," Torrian looked away awkwardly. "I'm not really sure yet if this is the right thing to do,"

Lily stopped and turned to him. "Really?"

"I've heard the arguments from both sides, and they both got a point," said Torrian soberly. "But I don't want to pretend that I understand the situation better than adults do. So doing this –" He pointed to Lily's clipboard. "– is about the best thing I can do to help. Carrying the people's wishes to the Ministry,"

"Yeah…I guess," Lily murmured. In the end, they were just students, so their best possible contribution was to go along with what the adults wanted. They couldn't hope to understand the complexities of war, let alone accomplish anything of meaningful impact by themselves. Especially not Lily, when the only thing she was good at was smiling. Her powerlessness wouldn't bother her so much if they were winning, but with the way things were going…she just wanted to be useful at _something_ towards the end.

"Wait, stop," said Torrian as they continued down the street. His head turned sharply to The Three Broomsticks, the largest inn and pub in Hogsmeade. He squinted at the air around the building. "There's a spell field here…an Anti-Taboo Field and something else…an Anti-Warp Field, too,"

Lily concentrated hard on The Three Broomsticks; she could very faintly sense a cloud of mana over the building – the sensation was like tiny nudges in the front of her brain. But she couldn't pick out details in the mana formation that would help her identify the spell; her mana sense was not as sharp as Torrian's.

"What's the matter?" Rose and Hugo came up from across the street.

"There's an Anti-Warp and Anti-Taboo Field over The Three Broomsticks," answered Torrian. "And I hear shouting as well. Arguing,"

Lily couldn't hear anything coming from the building, given that they were several yards away from it. Torrian must have been able to hear it due to his enhanced hearing.

"Anti-Taboo Field…that means the Ministry can't detect any monitored words inside the field," said Hugo.

"And an Anti-Warp Field means no one can Apparate or Disapparate inside," added Torrian. "But who cast the fields?"

"The only people I can think of…are the Knights," said Rose, worry dawning over her face. "So they can discuss things without being detected, or to keep others from calling the police,"

"We should go," said Torrian, stepping back from the building. "Or call the police,"

"We can't call them unless we're sure it's the Knights," said Rose.

"Then we should just go," said Torrian firmly.

"We can't just leave though," said Hugo.

While Torrian, Rose and Hugo faced each other in debate, Lily stepped forward, without a word, swiftly approaching the inn. The three of them called out to her, but their words didn't register in her mind. They had to confirm the Knights were in the building before they could call the police – so the only thing to do was to go in and confirm it. That was the only thing that occupied her mind. Maybe a part of her just wanted to see the infamous Knights with her own eyes, after only hearing or reading about them for so long. Of course, none of that was sound justification for the danger she was throwing herself and her friends into.

Torrian, Rose and Hugo ran after her, and reached her just as she opened the door. The Three Broomsticks Inn was dimly lit with warm candlelight, with a faint smokiness in the air. The pub area was of aged wooden décor, bearing decades of scratches in its floor, tables, and the bar. Despite that, the atmosphere was always relaxed and welcoming whenever Lily visited for a drink on Hogsmeade weekends.

The atmosphere right now was nothing like that. Lily had never seen the pub so crowded. Many of them she didn't recognize from Hogsmeade; they had to be displaced people from the recent Muggle attack. The room was choked full of tension; some men were sitting with arms crossed, some were standing irate, none were drinking, and all had their attention on one man, standing on a table in the middle of the room.

"This war was inevitable!" The man, middle-aged and fully bearded, declared to the crowd. "And it will not end until _we_ claim victory!"

"Absolute bollocks!" cried a man from the bar. "This is not the Christianity that I know – this is heresy!"

"You shut it and let him talk, before I curse your mouth off," another man threatened.

Engrossed in anger as the room was, everyone turned their heads to Lily as she opened the door. The speaker on the table squinted at Lily and her friends.

"Students? What are you doing here? It's the middle of Tuesday,"

Lily looked over the pub, but could not identify anyone with obvious signs of being a Knight. She wasn't even sure what she was looking for, besides someone wearing the Knights' symbol on their chest, which no one would do so publicly.

"Are you mute, girl? What are you doing here?" The man on the table demanded.

"I-I have a petition," Lily squeaked out, holding up her clipboard.

"A petition? Well, bring it here, girl," The bearded man stretched out his arm for it.

Lily stepped into the middle of the room and handed the clipboard to him. As she did so, Torrian, Rose and Hugo followed her in; the door slammed shut behind them.

The man read the petition and let out a derisive laugh. "Hah! A petition to the Ministry for an operation to re-take the towns? I'm afraid you're wasting your time, children. The Ministry won't do it this time,"

"You don't know that!" shouted one of the pub patrons. "Stop trying to turn us against the Ministry,"

"Did you not read their press conference after the Muggle attack?" replied the bearded man. "They dodged the question when asked about how the people will get their homes back. This petition itself is proof that you all understand the implication – the Ministry has given up on defending us. They are too scared of the Muggles now. But the Knights are not!" He bellowed at the top of his voice. "If you really want to reclaim your homes, don't join the militia – join the Knights of Walpurgis!"

The pub flew into an uproar.

"The Knights are murderers!" one man yelled. "Radical supremacists!"

"We don't need Dark wizards to save us!" another man got up from the bar and closed in on the bearded man. Before he reached him, he was punched in the face by another pub patron.

"Wake up, ya ponce! This is the only way!"

The man who got punched drew his wand and blasted his attacker across the pub. He in turn got levitated and slammed into the ground by another man's spell. In an instant, the whole room descended into a pub brawl. Spells, chairs and people criss-crossed through the air in total chaos.

"Lily!" Torrian grabbed Lily by the arm and pulled her towards the exit. The distance was short yet flooded with crossfire – they could barely move. Suddenly Torrian grabbed her shoulders and steered her sharply to the left; he shielded her from a flying stool and several glass mugs soaring from the bar. Rose and Hugo had already ducked and ran towards the door. But they were blocked; two men, both disarmed of their wands, were locked in a hand-to-hand struggle right in front of it.

"Stop this fighting at once!"

A powerful, loud voice drowned out the cacophony and struck Lily's ears like a shockwave. She and everyone else covered their ears in momentary pain and dizziness. Then she heard slow, heavy footsteps from the far end of the room and turned around.

From the stairs that led up to the rent rooms of the inn, descended a hulk of a man. Tall and thickly-muscled even through his robes, the stairs creaked with each step he took. His hair was red and wavy, falling to his shoulders.

"Sir!" the bearded man got up from the floor. "I'm sorry – I couldn't control the situation – we have to leave, the police will come soon –"

"I heard everything from upstairs," said Ares Graham, second-in-command of the Knights of Walpurgis. "You could have done better, but you are forgiven. And there is no rush; from here, it will take at least five minutes for the Ministry to detect a spell,"

In a distant corner of Lily's mind, she noted that he was referring to the Oculus Array: the Ministry's enormous artefact assembly that enabled it to detect nearly all magical activity across the U.K. Though none of the pub brawlers had used any illegal spells, the Oculus's Spell Tracing Element would soon recognize the sudden spike in spell activity indicating a fight and dispatch Ministry police to their location.

"But before I depart, I will first like to say a few words," Graham spoke in a deep, commanding voice as he touched down on the ground floor. The crowd stood obediently still and silent.

"A millennia ago, Saint Walpurga received the Word of God. The Lord gave her a vision of the future, of conflict between Muggle and wizard. But the Lord told her that His Chosen people would triumph. And that we wizards will claim our rightful place as the leaders of mankind and usher in a new prosperous age of magic. The Knights of Walpurgis are the brave men and women who will bring the Lord's plan to fruition,"

A discomfort crept through the faces of the crowd; even those who had fought on the Knights' side looked put off by his religiosity.

"I sense your lack of faith. But that is reasonable, in this age of materialism. But whether or not you believe it the work of God, Saint Walpurga received a vision; that is an incontrovertible fact. And her vision now plays out before you. Will you turn a blind eye to the truth, or will you embrace it, and inherit the grand destiny that the Lord has laid out for you, for all wizardkind?"

Graham strolled steadily through the crowd, towards the middle of the room.

"Here is one truth we must embrace before we may claim our destiny: As long as Muggles are in power, there will never be peace between our kinds. Muggles are selfish and fearful creatures. It was their fear and envy that led them to persecute us, torture us, murder us, and drive us all into hiding. Their society is ruled by deception and exploitation of their fellow man; callous, irresponsible abuse of people and the planet to assuage their insatiable thirst for power. All of it borne of the desperation to transcend their inherent feebleness. Mugglekind will never abide the existence of we who are blessed with God's own power. Unless we lead them past the error of their ways,"

"It is not enough to aim for a ceasefire – a mere temporary lull in the war. We must think of the future as well. Centuries ago they drove us into hiding, but now the time has come to show them who we are! We will defeat them and steer this world into a new era!"

" _Magus Praesidium!_ " shouted the bearded man.

Half the crowd pumped their fists in the air and chanted. " _Magus Praesidium! Magus Praesidium!_ "

As the crowd roared, Graham approached and stood before Lily and her friends. "And what do we have here?" he said quietly, bearing his eyes down on Lily. They were amber, like a beast's, sizing up a prey. She could sense the monstrous amount of mana coursing through his body; far more than she'd seen in her entire life, even from Torrian in dragon form. It was like pressure from the bottom of the sea crushing her brain, and it sent a paralyzing wave through her whole being. She couldn't think, her limbs couldn't move; all she could do was stand in fear of what had to be the embodiment of danger itself.

Torrian put himself between her and Graham. The towering Knight took two large sniffs at him and his eyes widened slightly in recognition.

"Ah. So _you_ are the boy," Graham murmured. "The Dragon Animagus. Such chance that we meet today,"

Torrian said nothing. Lily couldn't see his expression from his back, but his posture was defensive, fearful.

"Are you trying to protect your friends?" Graham smiled curiously. "Are they something worth protecting?"

In the blink of an eye, Graham grabbed Torrian by the neck and hoisted him into the air. Torrian drew his wand – and it shot out of his hand to a corner of the room. Graham had already drawn his wand in his left hand and disarmed Torrian with a thoughtcast _Expelliarmus._

"Go on then. Protect your friends," said Graham, slipping his wand back down the sleeve of his robe. "Transform. Show me what you're capable of,"

No one in the room dared to say or do anything besides hold their breath. Lily still couldn't think; she could only scream for help from the depths of her mind. But she sensed the mana inside Torrian, fluctuating, repeatedly surging high and then dipping back down.

"I sense the dragon inside you, but you're restraining it," said Graham. "Are you worried about collapsing the building? You should be able to morph without changing size. Or are you not capable of even that?"

A long moment passed where Torrian kicked at Graham's torso and tried fruitlessly to pry the man's hand from his neck. Graham studied his struggle with a disaffected stare.

"No – you're just afraid of your own power. You have little control of it. How disappointing. Your father will be disappointed as well,"

"You will not harm a hair on my students,"

Another arm reached out and grabbed Graham's by the upper arm. It belonged to a lanky, mousy-looking man, clothed in patched, raggedy robes. Yet his reedy arm, half the size of Graham's, pushed down and started to lower it.

Graham took a sniff and then smiled. "Ah. Professor…Ellery, is it? It has been a long time," Both of their arms shook as they clashed their strength. Graham's arm lowered halfway down before it held its place, Torrian still hanging off of it.

"I know that you are watching us," said Graham. "But it matters not. You cannot stop the Lord's Will. Stand in our way, and I, as His sword, will cut you down,"

Graham released Torrian. Torrian dropped to his knees and held his throat, gasping for breath. Professor Ellery shifted her – err, himself in front of Torrian and reached for something in his robe pocket.

Suddenly a hole opened up in the wooden floor and swallowed Lily, Torrian, Rose, Hugo and Ellery. The pub flew upwards out of her view as she fell through a pitch-black darkness. Then she and everyone else came tumbling out sideways out of a wall and onto a cold stone floor.

"Goodness, that was a mess," Ellery stood up and approached Professor Longbottom. "Neville – did you hear anything from the upper floor?"

"No; everything was Anti-Scryed," replied Longbottom with remorse.

"But Graham, in Hogsmeade? That has to mean something," muttered Slughorn, standing beside Longbottom. "If we could follow him…but it won't be easy, as he knows we're watching,"

"Well, if we continue staking out the inn, we should send someone whose scent he's not familiar with," said Ellery.

"Err, the students," Longbottom said, pointing to Lily and others, still picking themselves up from the floor. "Umm, Sandra. If you don't mind, err, could you see the students out?"

"Oh, yes of course,"

From a pocket, Ellery pulled out a vial of clear liquid and drank it. The face of the mousy man began to bulge and writhe like there were insects underneath. The man's lanky frame stretched up and expanded; the shoulders broadened, the chest swelled out, and the arms bulked up almost as muscular as Graham's. Lastly the face settled into its familiar form. The jaw became square, the eyes turned brown, and the hair shortened to a chestnut pixie-cut.

Cassandra Ellery, Professor of Ancient Runes and Head of Hufflepuff House, returned to Lily and the others as they got to their feet. "Are you all alright? Were any of you hit in the scuffle?"

Lily shook her head in reply, then turned behind her. "Torrian, are you okay?"

Torrian's throat had a red handprint where Graham grabbed him, though it healed up in a second. "Yeah, I'm fine," He looked up and around the surroundings. "This room…there's so much magic around it," he said, squinting hard at the walls.

Lily and the others looked around as well. They appeared to be in a large room, with stone floor and walls like much of the rooms of Hogwarts' towers. The magical hole they came from had disappeared. The sides of the room were lined with numerous artefacts of assorted shapes and sizes: Foe-Glasses, Probity Probes, and Secrecy Sensors – all detection magic artefacts that she'd seen her father use before.

In the middle of the room was Professor Longbottom with his back to them and Professor Slughorn beside him, surrounded by what looked like a large artefact assembly. Longbottom stood over a large counter that was covered in levers, knobs and other fiddly-looking controls. Dozens of large circular mirrors surrounded him, floating around him in a dome. The mirrors showed footage of scenes around Hogsmeade, the school gate, and the mountains to the west.

"What is this place?" asked Rose, staring wide-eyed at the array of artefacts.

"It's a special room that only staff are permitted to know about and use," replied Ellery. "I'm afraid I can't tell you more about it…but I suppose I do owe you all an explanation of what we're doing here,"

"Was that Polyjuice Potion?" said Hugo. "As in, the disguise you wore. You cleared it with Dispel Water,"

Ellery conspicuously paused and avoided the question. "I was in disguise to monitor the Knights' recruitment attempts and learn as much as I could about their movements or their plans. It was very fortunate I was there at the inn, or you children could have fallen into some serious trouble,"

Lily bowed her head, ashamed of herself. Not just for how she dragged all her friends into danger, but also for how uselessly she reacted to it. She had been overcome by terror. She never tried to come up with a way out of their situation; she never even fathomed the possibility that she could do it. Instantly she had resigned herself to standing frozen, hoping for someone to save her. So much for being a Gryffindor.

"By the way, Torrian, this is your wand. I picked it up for you back at the inn,"

Torrian received his wand back from Ellery. "Thank you, professor,"

"What is Professor Longbottom doing? Are those scrying mirrors?" asked Rose.

"Yes; Professor Longbottom is monitoring the Knights as well with the tools we have available,"

From one of the mirrors Longbottom was watching, Lily saw the storefront of the Three Broomsticks. Several men in blue Ministry police robes were exiting the building, escorting pub patrons out with their hands behind their backs.

"The Order is spying on the Knights?" muttered Rose.

"Yes. The Order's mission is to bring a peaceful end to this war. But the Knights of Walpurgis are our biggest obstacle to that. So we will do whatever we can to stop them,"

"Oh no," said Longbottom. "Keppel is at the school gate,"

Longbottom moved a couple of controls on his console; one of the scrying mirrors floated in front of him and enlarged. The mirror showed an elevated view of the school gates. Standing outside the gate were three people, one of them bald with a goatee and two others in police robes.

Headmistress McGonagall Apparated into view on the other side of the gate. With a wave of her hand, the gates opened and three men went up to McGonagall. Longbottom turned a dial on the scrying control console and the mirror started to emanate sound.

"So what brings you here, Chief Keppel?" McGonagall asked courteously.

"I think you know quite well, Headmistress," Tarquin Keppel, Chief of the Ministry Police Authority and commander of the militia, spoke quickly and curtly, with a straight back and a stone-hewn motionless face.

"Just a few minutes ago, police officers broke up an affray at the Three Broomsticks Inn at Hogsmeade. Witnesses have stated that four students and one of your professors, Cassandra Ellery, were present during the incident, who was disguised but identified by name. They allegedly fled the scene through a portal opening in the inn floor. The Police Authority requests that you summon the students and professor here so that we may take their witness statements,"

"I see," said McGonagall. "I'm afraid I had no idea that such a thing occurred, nor that any of my students or teachers were involved,"

"If you won't help us, then we will search the school campus for them ourselves,"

"Dear me," Ellery said at the screen. "Neville, could you make me a portal to the gate?"

"Alright," Longbottom turned around stretched his hand to a spot on the floor in front of Ellery. A hole opened up in the stone floor; through it Lily could see the dirt path that ran through the school gate. Ellery stepped forward and fell through the hole. Lily looked back up at the enlarged scrying mirror and saw Ellery drop out of thin air and land right beside McGonagall.

"Chief Keppel," Ellery gave a short bow.

"Hmph," Keppel cast his eyes about the sky, coming to rest at a spot that made him stare straight through the scrying mirror that Lily and everyone in the room was watching.

"You're scrying us right now, aren't you? From your fabled 'Room of Requirement', I take it," Keppel addressed McGonagall. "That's allowed in the confines of your own school. But outside, you'd be in violation of the Scrying Privacy Act,"

"I'm aware of the laws, Chief Keppel," McGonagall replied.

"Are you sure? Then you should also know that using Polyjuice Potion is illegal," said Keppel, bearing a scrutinizing gaze on Ellery.

"Do you have any proof that I was using Polyjuice Potion?" said Ellery, crossing her enormous arms over her chest. She was half a head taller than the chief of police and twice larger in muscular bulk. "I'll admit that I was in disguise, but it was only with a Slimming Spell and non-magical makeup,"

"It is not a crime to simply disguise oneself," remarked McGonagall.

"Not a crime, _per se_ ," corrected Keppel. "But almost always committed with criminal action or intent. What were you doing disguised at the Three Broomsticks?"

"I simply went to the pub for a drink," said Ellery. "I went with a little disguise because, what with word of the Knights being in the area, I didn't want to attract trouble as a member of the Order of the Phoenix,"

"Hmph. We'll see if that story holds up with the other witnesses' statements," growled Keppel. "Where are the students?"

"I don't think their statements will be necessary," said Ellery. "I was in the inn when they entered. I can testify as to everything that they did and witnessed,"

"No." stated Keppel. "We must speak to the students,"

"Our lunch period is almost over and the students will have to return to class," said McGonagall. "It would be dreadful to punish them for simply witnessing an incident by having them fall behind on lessons,"

Lily wondered for a moment what the problem was with letting them give their statements, then she realized: they were right now staring at a number of scrying mirrors looking over Hogsmeade – so they were witnesses to the Order breaking the Scrying Privacy Act. A part of her was still trying to process the fact that McGonagall had admitted to casting a Confundus Charm just three days ago. The Order of the Phoenix…it was the organization that fought against Lord Voldemort, they supported her father in defeating him; they were supposed to be the good guys.

"This is the last time I'm requesting," Keppel's voice grew hard. "Bring the students here,"

McGonagall slowly nodded. "Very well. But I'm afraid only one of them will be able to take questions at this time. The rest are being treated for mental shock in the hospital wing,"

"Hmph. Fine," grunted Keppel.

"I'll fetch the student, Headmistress," Ellery turned around and started up the path to the castle.

Back in the strange room, Longbottom turned to Slughorn. "We have to send one of them down,"

"Right," Slughorn nodded and then approached Lily and the others. He showed a carefree smile to their confused faces.

"Is everyone alright? Is anyone hurt?" he asked. They shook their heads. Slughorn studied them for a moment, possibly determining if any of them did need the hospital wing for mental shock.

"Well, I imagine that was a right mess you were caught up in," said Slughorn. "I've witnessed a few pub brawls myself. Got a nasty cut on my cheek and half my arm transfigured into a donkey leg. Glad to see you're all unharmed. But the police need one of you to answer their questions about what happened. It's a very simple affair: they'll ask you some standard questions like how you arrived at the scene and what you saw – it'll be over in a jiffy. So, is anyone up to the task? I'll inform your next teacher if you miss class, and I promise to make it up to you for the trouble,"

Lily, Rose, Torrian and Hugo all exchanged a searching look at one another. "I'll go," said Hugo.

"Good lad, Hugo," said Slughorn, beaming. Then his smile faded. "Ah, but first I must impress something on all of you. As Professor Ellery explained earlier, the mission of the Order of the Phoenix is to bring a peaceful end to the war, by stopping the Knights. And to do that, we need to keep our activities a secret from all those not directly involved, do you understand?"

Lily and the others nodded.

"So I need you to promise me that you will not speak to anyone of what you saw in this room, or at this room exists at all. If the police speaks to you and asks what happened after you fell through the portal, say that you fell into the Headmistress's office,"

"You mean lie to the police?" gasped Torrian.

"Yes; I'm afraid that some in the force may be more sympathetic to the Knights than others. We cannot risk that," said Slughorn. "And again, you cannot speak to anyone else either. Not to your friends or family. Can I have your word?"

Lily had a flash of worry: what if Slughorn decided that he couldn't risk any of them outing the Order for illegal scrying? He could use the Confundus Charm on them – addle their memories of what happened. Lily's eyes darted to Slughorn's wand arm – it hung casually at his side. If he reached for his wand, Lily would have to react fast and immediately disarm him.

"Yes. I promise," said Lily. The others then followed suit.

"Ah, very good. Thank you all for being so understanding," Slughorn puffed his chest cheerily. "Now, come with me, all of you,"

Thankfully he didn't reach for his wand. He must have believed that he could ensure their silence without a mental spell. Slughorn led them on the way out of the room. As Lily passed by Longbottom and the scrying mirrors, she tuned her ears back in to McGonagall's conversation with Keppel.

"Don't try to evade the question, Headmistress. I know that the Order is trying to spy on the Knights," Keppel said sternly.

Slughorn stopped in his tracks and turned up to the mirror scrying on their conversation. Lily and the others looked up as well, as Longbottom turned a dial to raise the volume.

"You sound very certain, Chief Keppel, but do you have any proof to support such confidence?" McGonagall replied coolly.

Keppel maintained his stony countenance. "We'll see after we question the student and Professor Ellery. Investigating Dark wizards is the jurisdiction of the DMLE. I don't want to have to deal with school teachers playing vigilantes as well. Too many potioneers spoil the brew,"

"I assure you that the Order does not want in any way to jeopardize the work of the Ministry police. But correct me if I'm mistaken – I haven't seen any indication of the police investigating Hogsmeade. Surely it must be a place of interest for Knight activity, as many displaced families have come here after losing their homes,"

Keppel's face scrunched in a dark scowl. "The bulk of displaced families are in Caelorum. The rest are spread out in wizard villages across the U.K. I don't have the men to sit undercover in every wizard pub there is. The police has its leads to follow. Don't presume to tell me how to do my job, Headmistress. Maybe Albus Dumbledore knew what he was doing when he led the Order, but you're no Albus Dumbledore. The Order is a shadow of its former self. Don't pretend you have the skills or knowledge to defeat the Knights of Walpurgis: these people are much deadlier than the Death Eaters ever were,"

McGonagall said nothing; it looked like both sides had struck each other's nerves. A smirk cracked in Keppel's stony face at the blow he landed.

"Consider this your one and only warning: If your Order does anything to jeopardize the Ministry's investigation, I will take you in for obstruction of justice. Is that clear?"

McGonagall hardened her aged, wizened face. "Very clear, Chief Keppel,"

Keppel stared across the school grounds. "That reminds me. Your C.O.C professor, Rubeus Hagrid. We caught him meeting with a Cabal smuggler last night in Caelorum,"

McGonagall nodded. "Yes, he informed me about the police questioning him. He claims that he had no idea that the gentleman he spoke to at the pub was a smuggler,"

"Hmph. That sounds unlikely, given his history of purchasing smuggled controlled substances and magical creatures. But my officers recorded their conversation. They were talking about transporting human cargo,"

"Oh no," breathed Longbottom.

"I know what you're planning to do," Keppel spoke coldly. "Did you really think you could get away with going behind the Ministry's back?"

Longbottom slammed a button on the control console – the scrying mirror's face flickered and it turned into an ordinary mirror. Longbottom shot a look at Slughorn, which snapped him back to his wits.

"Come on everyone, let's go," Slughorn stood between the mirror and students and ushered them towards the exit.

"Wait, what was the police chief talking about?" asked Lily, holding her ground. The conversation had gone so fast, she was just starting to process the jarring information she had overheard. "Professor Hagrid was caught by the police? Speaking to a Cabal smuggler?"

"It's nothing that you should be concerned about," Slughorn said anxiously. "Professor Hagrid did nothing wrong –"

"Chief Keppel said something about human cargo," said Rose, breathless with disbelief. "What did he mean? Who's being transported?"

"No one's being transported. The police chief is simply mistaken – go to the exit, students. You've been here long enough,"

"Then what is he mistaken about?" asked Rose. "What does he think McGonagall is doing behind the Ministry's back?"

Suddenly Slughorn's face turned ruddy and stern. "The two of you are being disobedient. I said go to the exit now. All of you," He pointed at the door.

There was no point in asking questions any longer. Lily turned around with the others and exited the strange room. But as she reached the door, she had an idea: she reached secretly into her robe pocket for her Rembauble – an artefact many students owned that allowed them to record things around them. She thoughtcast a Disillusionment Charm on the plum-size glass ball, activated it and dropped it at her feet.

Slughorn followed them out of the room and closed the door behind him.

"Right then. Come with me, Hugo. We have to meet Professor Ellery downstairs. The rest of you should get ready for class," Hugo and Slughorn left down the hallway, Slughorn speaking to Hugo as they walked, possibly coaching him on what to say to the police.

Lily turned around to check the door she just came from, only to find that it had disappeared. Lily touched the stone wall where the door had been. Rose came up beside her and did the same.

"It's a shapeshift-barrier," Rose squinted up and down the wall. "There's layers upon layers of spells – I can't even understand it,"

So there was no way for them to open the door again themselves. If Lily wanted to retrieve her Rembauble, she would have to wait for the moment Longbottom came out.

Torrian shook his head and sighed, his expression confused and tired at the events of the afternoon. "So what do we do now? Go to class?"

Everything that had just happened, the things she had overheard – it was too much for Lily to just ignore. "Rose, Torrian," She whispered to them. "Come with me,"

"What? Where?"

"Just follow me,"

Lily took Rose and Torrian a couple of turns down the hallway and into an empty classroom.

"What's this about, Lily?" asked Torrian.

Lily turned around and explained. "Before we left that room, I dropped a Disillusioned Rembauble on the floor. Right now, it should be recording everything in that room,"

"An invisible Rembauble," Rose echoed, her eyes widening. "I never knew you could use one like that,"

Lily was a little surprised herself to hear that Rose didn't know of something. "It's a trick I learnt from James to eavesdrop on people," Back when they were younger and James was a happier person.

"But Professor Longbottom's an ex-Auror. What if he senses it?" said Rose.

"I don't think so," replied Torrian. "That room has too much magic flowing through it. I didn't sense Lily dropping the Rembauble; I don't think he will either,"

Lily hadn't thought of that risk at the time; she hoped that Torrian was right. "Torrian. You have really good hearing, right? When you hear Professor Longbottom opening the door to that room, I want you to _Accio_ my Rembauble,"

Torrian frowned uncomfortably. "I guess I can do that…but should we really? You know what Slughorn said: the Order is doing very sensitive work. Should we really be eavesdropping on them?"

Rose clutched her arms to her chest, struggling with her thoughts. "You have a point…but I don't know. The way the professors acted was…suspicious. They were open to us about spying on the Knights, but when it came to what Keppel said – human smuggling through the Cabal, going behind the Ministry's back – I can't simply ignore that,"

Lily nodded. "I feel the same way. It sounds really serious,"

Torrian shook his head. "If it's serious, all the more reason we shouldn't get involved. Whatever it is they're doing anyway, the Order is made up of good people: our professors. They won't do anything bad, so it's nothing we need to know or worry ourselves about,"

"…Are you sure about that?" Lily muttered. Lily loved Hogwarts' professors – each of them was interesting and fun in their own way. But maybe she didn't know them as well as she thought she did. So far, this day had really gone out to remind her of how much she didn't know about anything.

The school bell rang dully through the walls, signalling that it was five minutes to one o'clock. Torrian's gaze snapped to the right-hand wall, in the direction of the strange room. He then pointed his wand to it and incanted, _"Accio Rembauble,"_

There came a soft knock on the bottom of the classroom door from the other side. Lily quickly creaked open the door, felt around the floor, and retrieved her Rembauble.

Lily shut the door and dispelled its Disillusionment Charm. "Thanks, Torrian," Even though he disagreed, he still helped her anyway.

"Did Professor Longbottom sense your Summoning Charm?" Rose asked Torrian worriedly.

"I didn't hear anything from him, so I don't think so," said Torrian. "He may have been distracted – plus he hasn't been an Auror for years, so his mana sense is probably rusty,"

Lily tapped a button on a brass ring that circled the Rembauble. The inside of the glass orb, swirling with thick mist, began to glow. Wisps of the same mist appeared out of thin air above the Rembauble. The misty coils shifted colour and transformed into a smoky diorama – a miniature representation of the strange room they were in.

There was Longbottom, Slughorn, Lily and the others, appearing like tiny ghosts upon a misty floor. The wispy projection of Slughorn shooed Lily and the others out, and Longbottom stared up at the array of scrying mirrors before him. He pressed a button on his console, and sound returned to the main enlarged mirror. It was a little soft, so Lily held down a button on the Rembauble to raise its volume.

"…Is that not your plan, Headmistress?" came the voice of Chief Keppel.

"I shan't admit to any wrongdoing, but if your deduction were indeed the case, I think that our plan would be foiled now, with the police being aware of it," replied McGonagall.

"Yes, I know that. But in the case that I'm wrong, I want you to know that the Ministry will not show any mercy if the Order betrays our security. Do you understand?"

"I do, Chief Keppel,"

"Good. Ah – Professor Ellery has returned with the witness. Inspector, please escort them to the station for interview,"

"Yes, sir,"

There was short pause of silence.

"Is there any other business you would like to discuss, Chief Keppel?"

"No, we're done here – for now,"

"I bid you farewell, then. Good luck in your investigation,"

Shortly after, the wisp of McGonagall popped into the strange room by Apparition and stood beside Longbottom.

"It seems we narrowly avoided exposing our plan last night," said McGonagall.

"Yeah. Thank goodness Hagrid's contact didn't reveal anything," Longbottom sighed in relief. "The police must have only picked up a few lines from their meeting. They thought we were planning to smuggle ourselves to London to support Hermione,"

"I get the impression from Keppel's behaviour that he is aware of the ceasefire deal with the Muggle government," said McGonagall. "His mood is anxious, and he wishes to minimize complications from any party until it follows through,"

"But he doesn't know about our part in the deal," remarked Longbottom. "Do you think Cadogan would let us go through with it if he knew?"

McGonagall shook her head slowly. "I can't know for certain, but my opinion is that he won't. He approved of Lowther's sleeper agents, so he believes in their value as insurance against the Muggle government. He would prefer to re-negotiate the deal than to lose that insurance. And there may be other information locked in Ethan's mind that he can't afford to give up,"

Lily's breath stopped. How on earth did Ethan tie into all this?

McGonagall hung her head low and her shoulders sagged; it was an expression of sadness Lily had never thought possible from the Headmistress.

"We truly are powerless. Trading a boy's life for the possibility of peace. Albus would be disappointed in me," Her usually prim and dignified voice betrayed a quiver of pain.

"Don't blame yourself, Minerva. It was our decision. Even after Hermione ordered us to do it, we still voted on what we should do. It was unanimous,"

"If only we had more time…to forge a better solution," muttered McGonagall. "But we must hand Ethan over before the end of this Thursday. This is the best…our feebleness can manage,"

"…What about Lowther's sleepers? If Lowther really does have Spooks in London, they'll be exposed if Ethan knows their covers,"

"I will inform Lowther once we hand Ethan over to MI7. He should have enough time to recall his agents,"

"So we'll essentially be forcing his and Cadogan's hand; forcing him to take the ceasefire and withdraw his insurance against the Muggle government. What will become of us after that, though? Will Keppel arrest all of us?"

"I think it may depend on how well the deal turns out for the Ministry. In exchange for all the Ministry's Muggle prisoners, those who lost their homes in yesterday's attacks will be able to collect their homes, and there will be no more attacks from either side. If the public receives the deal well, the Ministry can't condemn us for making it happen. But if there are charges, I will bear sole responsibility for handing over Ethan. The Ministry won't have enough evidence to contend otherwise,"

"Minerva, you can't –"

"There's the bell, Neville. You should head to your next class now. I shall relocate the Room and hand it over to the ghosts to continue surveillance,"

The diorama became a blur – that would be due to the Rembauble flying over the ground when Summoned by Torrian. The misty constructs then dissipated into the air, the recording having ended.

Lily looked up at Rose, looked up at Torrian; none of them could utter a word to express their shock. Lily felt her heart sink, weighing her down so much that she couldn't feel her own feet. What weighed on her heart was the pure despair of being betrayed – Headmistress McGonagall, Professor Longbottom, the teachers that she knew and loved, even her aunt Hermione…they all agreed to surrender Ethan to the Muggles. But it was not they who betrayed her – it was her own expectations.

Still…after witnessing McGonagall assist in a frame-up and blackmail, after seeing Longbottom use illegal scrying, how could she still be surprised? She understood why they had to do it. She learnt long ago that her own father used Unforgiveable Curses in the war against the Death Eaters; thus she had never been a stickler for the law…so why did it still hurt so much? Could it something else that she felt betrayed her? Or had she yet to truly accept that this was how the world worked? That pain without a clear cause tore at her more than anything.

"I…I can't believe it," said Rose, her voice a hollow whisper. "Mum…the Order…they agreed to hand Ethan over to MI7. He'll…he'll be killed…"

"Are you sure about that?" asked Torrian, looking half-stunned. "Professor Longbottom said – he said that Ethan had information on Ministry sleeper agents. Why would the Muggles kill him?"

Rose stared far away through the floor of the classroom. "If the information is locked behind a Memory Charm, then they have to use invasive dispelling…which have a high chance of brain damage. Headmistress McGonagall…she said they were trading his life for a 'possibility of peace'…" Rose winced and shrunk into herself. "I can't believe that this is happening…is this really the only way?"

Lily had reached the same thoughts and fears, but to hear Rose say it made it concrete to her; something that she couldn't simply push out of her mind. Ethan was going to die by the hand of the Muggle government, by the hand of her own teachers…this was the world she lived in. And there was nothing she could do about it. What could she even hope to do about it? She was just one stupid girl who accidently caught a glimpse of the real world.

But wait – why was she even thinking about herself? Ethan was the one in danger.

"Ethan," Lily said aloud. "Do you think Ethan knows about this?" Rose and Torrian stared back at her with blank faces.

There was one thing she could do, at the very least. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, for the sake of wizardkind. But she could not just stand aside – he had a right to know, a right not to be kept in the dark as she was.

"We have to tell Ethan,"

* * *

What a dumb, stupid move that was.

His move had been far too hasty. He had vastly overestimated his position. Did he really think that he could demand to be set free in exchange for his willing aid? To think, after everything he'd been through, he was still pathetically emotional enough to make a mistake like that.

Assuming the Order still wanted to make use of his hacking expertise to support Hermione Weasley, they first had to set up a blind zone in London – or some other Muggle territory – to keep him hidden from the Ministry. Then they could use the Imperius Curseto make him work for them. That would be the best time to make his escape – inside Muggle territory, with access to a computer. He had plenty of practice breaking out of _Imperius_ ; the problem was breaking out of the prison the Order was sure to put him in.

At the desk of his office, Ethan pored over a book titled 'Charms of Defence and Deterrence'.

 _Illusion-barriers…barrier spell combined with an illusion spell…the illusion obfuscates the mana formation, making the combined spell system harder to counter-spell…_

 _Shapeshift-barriers…a physical barrier – may be magically reinforced – that changes form according to set parameters…_

How was he supposed to break through them without magic? An artefact, or a magic-dispelling concoction…? He had been reading the whole day and had yet to find such thing he could use. Even if he did, how could he get his hands on it? And how was he supposed to hide it from the Order and access it later? It certainly sounded like an impossible task. Despite breaking _Imperius_ multiple times in the Ministry's dungeon, he could never find his way through its barriers. He was armed with more knowledge now, and more resources around him, and still it looked hopeless. Gradually he could feel his motivation slipping. He definitely _wanted_ to escape this hellhole known as the magical world, but it was starting to feel like a half-hearted perfunctory effort. It wasn't like there was anything of worth for him to get back to in Muggle world anyway…

There came a knock on his door.

Ethan looked up from his reading. "Open office door,"

The door swung open, and revealed Lily, Rose and Torrian Fraser. Immediately Ethan analysed their body language as they entered his office. Lily and Rose were nervous, uncomfortable; their bodies drooped cautiously and their eyes darted left and right over his office, as if watching out for hidden traps. Torrian was wary, guarded; his watchful mien hovered protectively behind Lily. He too scanned the room before scrutinizing Ethan with a narrow-eyed look.

Lily and Rose haven't looked him in the eye since they witnessed him getting rid of Crawford. They went along with James' boycott of his classes and signed the petition to have him dismissed. Naturally, they must have also have read Ginevra Potter's article on him by now, and like most of the school, believe that he killed his family and that of Maryann Mallory.

All of that was understandable, of course. Eventually, all upstanding moral citizens grew to fear and loathe him. He never expected anything else. So Ethan felt nothing and said nothing as the three of them nervously approached his desk.

"Ethan," said Lily. She stepped forward and found the courage to make eye contact with him. Up close, he noted that her pupils were dilated, her face pale and her lips dry; she wasn't just nervous, but significantly rattled. She was breathing fast; either she had run up several flights of stairs to reach him, or she had just escaped a dangerous situation. But there was no cold sweat or tension in her posture that suggested a flight-or-flight response. So whatever rattled her was more likely to be mental, like learning an earth-shaking truth.

"You need to listen to this," Lily placed a Rembauble on his desk, a magical artefact that served as a mostly inferior video camera. The glass orb, standing on its small flat base, projected a misty diorama above itself. It conjured a room full of peculiar artefacts, and miniature figures of Lily, Rose, Hugo, Torrian, and Professors Slughorn and Longbottom.

Ethan watched the recording. As he watched, he deduced and extrapolated information with cold, surgical detachment.

 _So…the British government made a deal with both the Ministry and the Order. A ceasefire, release of the Muggle prisoners, and the displaced wizards can get back their homes._ A pretty fair deal for both sides. The only missing piece was him.

The projection dissipated.

"How did you get this?" Ethan asked without emoting.

Lily looked wide-eyed at his lack of reaction. "I…we were in Hogsmeade, getting signatures for a petition, when…"

She recounted the events led up to them coming to his office. Once she concluded, Ethan internally revised the full scope of what he'd learnt, evaluated his situation, and pondered on what should be his next course of action.

He thought he would have more time to prepare his escape, but with this revelation it turned out he only had three days, including today. And instead of being dominated to serve the Order, he would be subject to invasive dispelling by MI7, which will likely more or less kill him.

Could he devise a way to escape in the middle of the handover? That seemed extremely unlikely. Should he contact Harry Potter? Ethan had learnt from Ginevra Potter that he genuinely wanted to free him, but Harry Potter may yet agree with the Order in giving him to MI7. Assuming he didn't, the man could try to harbour Ethan somewhere else, but that hideout may not last long with the Ministry searching for him. It was the safer option, but it would weaken his agency and available resources, perhaps only postponing the inevitable. _Wait…what if…maybe…_ but that may be the riskiest option of all.

"Ethan…are you alright?" Lily peered at him as he contemplated over his desk.

Why would she ask that? He wasn't betraying any signs of distress in his appearance, not as far as he was aware. In any case, why should she even care?

"I'm fine."

"I…I'm so sorry. I can't believe –"

"What reason do you have to be sorry? This has nothing to do with you," Ethan said tersely.

Lily's mouth lingered open, bereft of words. Ethan read surprise in her features, which slowly shifted to…something else. The lower lip pouting out, her eyebrows drawn in and upwards – those were indications of sadness. But he could be mistaken. Microexpressions were not by themselves infallible evidence of a specific emotion, and he could have perceived the details wrongly. But whatever the case, it shouldn't be any concern of his.

"Thank you for bringing this to me," Ethan spoke in a formal tone. It was against the interest of wizardkind for them to have given him this information, but they still did. That much he had to be grateful for. "You all can go now,"

"What?" said Lily, shocked in unison with Rose and Torrian.

"I said you all can go. Thank you for this warning. But you needn't concern about yourselves about this any longer,"

Ethan stood up, walked around his desk, and strode towards the office door.

"But – what are you going to do?" Lily asked as he passed by her.

"That is my business,"

"Ethan – wait!"

Ethan turned around. Lily clutched her hand over her chest, wincing like her heart was fit to burst.

"I'm sorry. After you got Crawford to resign, I…I got kind of freaked out. I should have stuck up for you. I should have stayed when the rest walked out of your class. I knew better than they did, but I followed them like a dumb sheep. Like a coward. I'm really, really sorry,"

Ethan stared at her in surprise. Why she was even bringing up that incident, he did not understand.

"I'm sorry, too," Came Rose's voice behind him. Ethan turned around to see a similarly contrite figure.

"I also gave in to peer pressure. I signed James' petition. Even though…I didn't want to. And to do that to you, compounded with all the hostility you've faced in this school…you deserved better than that from me. I'm sorry,"

Their sincerity seeped into him in a very uncomfortable way, like a wetness in his socks or touching slime inside a damp cave. He tried to hold up his cold-blooded front, but started to realize how pointless that was in front of Lily and Rose.

"Alright," Ethan sighed with a sag of his shoulders. "Your reactions were perfectly understandable. I don't see what all this…emotionality is supposed to be about. But…I accept your apology,"

Lily and Rose breathed out with the relief of a great guilt lifted off their spirits. Torrian looked at what just happened with a slack jaw.

"Now, if there's nothing else – goodbye," Ethan stepped past Rose and Torrian and reached for the door.

"Wait – what are you going to do?" asked Rose. "You have a plan, right? Of course you do,"

Ethan considered simply walking away. But he supposed there was no issue with telling them. He owed them at least some forthrightness after they had given him this warning. Once again, Ethan turned around.

"I'm going to Hogsmeade. To the Three Broomsticks to gather as many clues as I can about what happened there. From now until the end of the next two days, I'm going to uncover as much intelligence as I can about the Knights, and I'm going to use that to negotiate with the British government,"

Their reaction was, as he expected, utter bewilderment.

"You mean…spy on the Knights of Walpurgis?" whispered Rose, her eyes wide, her usually demure expressions shattered by alarm. "That's…insane,"

"That's right!" cried Lily, quite besides herself. "That's way too dangerous!"

In his escapades as a member of the Marauders, Ethan had faced and survived many tight spots, a fair number of them life-threatening. But he had to admit, this was a new level of crisis to him; he had never faced such a challenge on his own before, and never at this much of a disadvantage. He wouldn't bet on his own survival at this point…but his pride would not allow him to just lay down and die.

"I don't have a choice," said Ethan calmly. "The only way to get myself out of this deal with the British government is to offer something better in exchange. And intel on the Knights is the only thing I can hope to find,"

Rose shook her head feebly. "But the Ministry, the Order, the Muggle military and countermagic agencies – they've been combating the Knights for over a year with little success. How…how are you even going to keep yourself safe…?"

"I have experience with people like the Knights. I won't expose myself or my actions so easily," said Ethan, with a lot more confidence than he internally possessed.

"Even so, how will you collect information on them without magic?"

Rose definitely raised a fair point there. Ethan figured that he would cross that bridge when he got to it, but his prospects didn't look good.

Ethan gave a tiny snort, almost amused at the bleakness of it all. "I'm a criminal mastermind. I'll figure something out," He turned around to open the door.

"Ethan, wait!"

Ethan turned back to face Lily. "What now?"

"If – if there's anything we can do to help –" said Lily.

"There's no way you can help me. This is out of your league,"

Lily flinched, visibly stung by his words. Ethan felt a pang of guilt for belittling her, but it was for her own good. She had no stake in this predicament. Whatever misguided sense of empathy led her to want to help, it was not worth the risk.

Lily, her eyes downcast, stood still contemplating something deep within her. Then her eyes widened, slowly lighting up with a thought that gave her strength.

"I know I probably can't do anything to help…" she said softly. "But…maybe I can just follow you,"

Ethan wasn't sure he understood. "What?"

"Well…if you're able to keep yourself safe, then I should be fine as well, right? If I do anything to get in your way, I promise I'll back off," Lily added quickly. "But…if you don't mind…I want to follow you. And maybe learn something from watching you,"

Lily looked straight into his eyes as she gave her earnest request. Ethan didn't need to analyse her body language to tell that she was serious. Her fear and doubt was plain to see in her quivering eyes. But her resolve, her desire to become stronger was there as well, seen through the vivid shine of her emerald irises. Ethan understood her struggle painfully well. If she truly wanted to make a difference – to mean something, then he could not deny her the chance.

"I don't have the power to stop you from following me. But do so at your own peril,"

Lily breathed out and smiled at him gratefully. Ethan however, felt a twinge of queasiness. _Great._ Now he had to be twice as careful with his plans _._ It wasn't just his own life on the line anymore.

"Lily, you can't do this," said Torrian, looking aghast. "The Knights are dangerous people. If they catch you spying on them – they'll kidnap you, kill you, or brainwash you! You saw Ares Graham – that's who you're up against. There's no way – there's no way to pull this off. This is way over our heads,"

"And it's not just the Knights," Ethan added. "We'll have to dodge the Order and the Ministry as well as they will try to stop us,"

Torrian pointed back at him. "You hear that? Outwitting the Knights, the Order, _and_ the Ministry?! That's impossible!"

Lily crossed her arms and stood firm. "It's my decision, Torrian. You don't have to get involved if you don't want to,"

Torrian reeled back, stunned. He then ground his teeth, struggling to make his own decision. "No; I can't let you go with him alone,"

Lily gave a short nod. "Well good. We'll all be a lot safer with you around,"

Rose looked up at Ethan and they made eye contact. In her light blue eyes, scintillating as they quivered, was a yearning held back by fear. But slowly as she looked at him, her gaze steadied and her quiet determination shone through.

"I want to follow you as well, Ethan. I'll try to help you however I can,"

Ever since Ethan became a Marauder, and came to understand the foibles of humanity, he had held a generally low opinion of people in his own age group. Most were awful, some were okay, but all were disappointingly predictable in how they just barely managed to cope with their human flaws and frailties. But these people in front of him, they surprised him in a way that even adults haven't ever before. Still, it remained to be seen whether this was courage or deadly foolishness.

Provided that he could get Torrian to follow his orders, his raw power and keen sensing abilities would be very valuable in the task ahead. Rose's superior knowledge of magic could also come in handy. He never asked for this help, but now that it was available, his chances of survival were starting to look an iota more than utterly impossible.

Ethan faced Lily, Rose and Torrian with a wry smile, this time with a decent amount of resolve and confidence that he actually, truly possessed.

"Very well. I hope you know what you're signing up for. We're going to spy on the Knights to uncover valuable intel for negotiation with the Muggle British government, and we'll have to outplay both the Ministry and the Order in the process. You better be ready, because this is going to be the craziest, most dangerous thing you've done in your life. Now follow me – there's no time to waste."


	20. Chapter 20 - First Mission

Chapter 20 – First Mission

Ethan strode out of his office at a brisk pace with Lily, Rose and Torrian following behind him. He looked down at his watch as he crossed down the hallway towards the Grand Staircase. Classes had already started. At any moment the professors would realize that Lily, Rose and Torrian weren't coming to class, and what they had done.

"Alright, listen up," said Ethan as they kept walking. "Any second now the Order is going to pop up and try to stop us from leaving the school. When they do, don't say anything – let me handle the talking."

Ethan heard Torrian's confused voice behind him. "Don't say anything? Why not?"

"Except for one thing," Ethan continued as they hurried down the stairs. "They'll probably surround us, so I want all of you to watch them very carefully when they do. If you sense any of them starting up a spell or making a sudden move, I want you summon the police with their distress call – it's _Expecto '_ break' _Vigiles_ , without the 'break'."

"We know what the police distress call is," Torrian said testily.

They reached the Entrance Hall and stepped down the marble staircase. As they reached the base of the stairs, McGonagall Apparated in front of them, standing before the front doors. The four House ghosts emerged from the walls, surrounding Ethan and the others from four sides.

"Ethan – it seems that you've learnt about our plan," said McGonagall; she and the House ghosts stood tall and stoically, like guardian statues before an ancient gate. Behind Ethan, Lily, Rose and Torrian covered each other's backs and watched the ghosts in wary stances, wands out.

"Yes I have," said Ethan, tapping into his cold-blooded persona. "I'm not surprised. Just disgusted."

"What do you intend to do, boy?" the Bloody Baron asked gruffly. "Are you going to speak to the Ministry?"

"No," Ethan replied, staring only at McGonagall. "Once again, I'm going to do your job for you. I will spy on the Knights of Walpurgis, and I will acquire some valuable intelligence to replace myself in this deal you've made with the British government."

Varying degrees of shock and dread passed through the faces of the ghosts. "Preposterous," gasped the Grey Lady. "An impossible undertaking, even if you weren't a bunch of children!"

"You people left me no choice," said Ethan, his voice both cold and fierce. "Now get out of my way. If you don't, then we'll call down the Ministry police and have them sort this shit out. I'm sure they'll love to learn about the Order's illegal scrying and who knows what else you've done in your little spying operation."

"I understand your anger at us," appealed the Fat Friar. He was a rotund man dressed in a monk's drab habit. "It is completely justified. But what you're trying to do now is not the solution. Let us talk about this calmly. Let us first explain our side of the story before you make your decision."

"Spare me your regrets and rationales," said Ethan. "I know why you decided to feed me to the wolves. Maybe in your position, I would do the same thing. But I'm in _my_ position, and no matter what you have to say, there is only one choice for me to make."

"But you don't have to drag other students into this," said Nearly-Headless Nick. He turned to Lily and the others. "Torrian, Lily, Rose – this doesn't concern you. You can still turn back now and we'll let you go without issue. What Ethan intends to do – it's too dangerous for you to follow."

Ethan couldn't see Lily's face, but he heard the irritation in her voice. "Ethan didn't drag us into anything – we're choosing to help him."

"You shouldn't have told him of what you heard in the first place," said the Grey Lady to them. "What you did was a betrayal of all our efforts towards peace –"

"Our students did nothing wrong in giving Ethan the truth," McGonagall re-entered the conversation. "Truth before Justice – am I not right, Helena Ravenclaw?"

The Grey Lady fell into grudging silence. McGonagall faced Ethan straight-on. "Ethan; you are aware, I take it, that should you call in the Ministry, they will learn of our deal with the British government and you may be killed to protect its secrets?"

"Yes," said Ethan. "So we'll both be screwed. But there is an option that benefits all of us. You let us go, we find intel on the Knights and we make our own deal with the British government."

McGonagall shook her head. "We can't in good conscience allow you to investigate the Knights on your own. As capable as you may be, you're only children."

Ethan sneered dryly. "Good conscience? Hah."

"I deeply regret that you had to learn of our plan in this manner. I should have told you about our deal with the British government at the staff meeting yesterday. Then we could have worked together to forge the best solution for you. That was what I intended when I offered for you to lead our operation…We can still work together to uncover information from the Knights of Walpurgis."

Ethan scoffed aloud. "Work together? So you can hand me _and_ my intel over to the British government? I don't think so. You're right about one thing: I would have been much more motivated to join your spying operation if you had been straight with me. Do you know why you didn't tell me about the deal? Because you had already settled on handing me over to the Muggles and didn't think you would uncover anything of enough value to negotiate with. But that didn't stop you from offering to use me one last time before sending me off to die. I have to admit, you have a lot of nerve right now to still act like I can trust you."

McGonagall responded to him with only silence. The ghosts looked worriedly at their faltering leader.

"The four of you can't do much on your own," said Nearly-Headless Nick. "You need our resources if you want to acquire information that's valuable enough to trade for your life."

Ethan smiled. Now came the important part of this conversation.

"That's not a problem; just provide us with the tools and artefacts you have, to protect ourselves and make our job easier. In particular, I want access to that interesting room this school has. The Room of Requirement."

"Oh, now he's making demands." The Bloody Baron crossed his arms with a sneer.

"What impudence," breathed the Grey Lady. "The Room of Requirement. Its powers are not meant for you, child. You do not even know how to use it."

"Then show us how to use it, then," said Ethan. "You're worried about our safety, right? Then give us the Room and we'll be much safer. From both you and the Knights."

Since the Room of Requirement was a blind zone, the Order could easily portal them into the Room and wipe their memories of everything they learnt today. In fact, they could do it right now and Ethan would be forced to summon the Ministry police the second before he fell in. So the first thing he had to do was take it from them.

"Do you genuinely believe that you can succeed?" Nearly-Headless Nick's stared hard at Ethan, his voice grave. "It is one thing to risk your own life, but to risk the lives of others in a hopeless plan – I won't stand idly by if that is the case."

"Not only is he endangering their lives, he's also taking hostage of all wizardkind," cut in the Grey Lady. "If he calls in the Ministry or loses his life to the Knights, our hopes of peace with the Muggles are dashed."

"Don't be dramatic," Ethan retorted. "If the British government wants peace, they'll take the deal or offer another one soon enough. You just won't get to be the heroes anymore," He then turned to Nearly-Headless Nick. "I won't guarantee that I'll succeed, but I know I stand a better chance than anyone else in this school. I'm a Marauder – in two years I've done shit like this more times than any of you thousand-year fossils stuck in this castle. I know how groups like the Knights operate; I know how to beat their precautions, exploit their weaknesses. If I fail, it'll only be because I wasn't given the tools to do it."

"That is a tall boast, even if we did believe your alleged feats with the Marauders," said the Baron. "But they're not with you now. And you think you can risk these students' lives in their stead?"

"I'm not risking anyone's lives. They're risking their own lives. They can leave any time they like."

Nick turned to Lily, Rose and Torrian. "You kids – you genuinely trust that he can do this, and keep you safe?"

"You have no clue of the peril you will face," said the Grey Lady to them. "I don't know what the boy has said to convince you that he can do what the Order can't – but if you follow along in his desperate ploy you will only go down with him."

They had been standing around for long enough. It was time to bring an end to this confrontation.

"The Order hasn't been spying for a day and already you've exposed your operation to four students," said Ethan, raising his voice. "You had a chance to cover it up by wiping their memories but you let it slip. It's the kind of oversight that soft-hearted, inexperienced idiots make. It goes to show that the Order just isn't cut out for this job. Stand aside, Headmistress McGonagall; it's our turn now."

McGonagall stood quiet, mulling over her decision; the ghosts watched her in anticipation.

"Whether or not the boy can succeed is not even relevant," The Grey Lady declared. "The Order has a plan with guaranteed success; we have no reason to risk the lives of our students and our chance at peace just for one Muggle's claim that he can do better."

"In other words – cowardice. That is how good people do bad things," said Ethan.

McGonagall raised a hand to cut off the ghosts from retorting. She faced Ethan with pain etched through her aged face.

"You may call it cowardice, but I cannot risk this chance for peace solely on your ability. I know this is not adequate at all but…I am sorry. You will return to your office and I will barricade it until the time of the handover. Miss Weasley, Miss Potter, Mr Fraser – you will return to your classes and speak nothing of today's events to anyone."

All this time, Ethan was trying to tune out his panic, but now it was slowly ringing in his ears. He started to second-guess his strategy: did he make the right argument? Should he have gone slower, been more conciliatory? Persuasion wasn't his strong suit – a weakness he was keenly aware of but never able to fix. Anger fomented inside Ethan; both at himself and the unfairness of his situation. But there was no turning back now; all he could was go all in with his anger.

"All of your chance for peace will end now if you don't let me go!" Ethan bellowed. "The Ministry will arrest you and all your professors implicated in illegal activity. I don't care if you don't believe in me. I am _making_ you. Stand aside!"

"You won't call in the Ministry," said the Bloody Baron, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword. "Not if we can help it. Headmistress, let's put an end to this."

The ghosts shifted their stances, looking ready to assault Ethan's group at any instant. Their only play was to summon the police, but it was definitely possible for the ghosts to Silence them before they could speak the words. Lily and Rose could counter-spell _Silencio_ , but they had to be faster on the draw than the ghosts. Only Torrian might be able to resist their spells and get the words off, but Ethan couldn't be certain that the guy would follow through. All in: all he had to – all he could do – was show them who they were dealing with. Ethan shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You think I'm bluffing? Fine then. So you will rather ruin me, yourself and all your professors than admit when you're out of your depth. If this Order of the Phoenix is the best that wizardkind has to defend itself, then I'm glad that I won't be around to see the mess that comes next. When wizardkind is brought to its knees by the military and the Knights nuke the world to hell, I hope you remember that this is the point where you failed. This is the point where you failed to see past your own weakness and trust in the strength of someone else. At least I will go down fighting. Hell, it's the only thing I ever did well in my short, miserable life! You're just giving up, and you will rot in a cell you put yourself in. There's nothing more to say here. Go on, choose our fate. I'm waiting."

Ethan fixed his eyes on McGonagall and sharpened the rest of his senses; he loaded his throat on a hair trigger, ready to shout ' _Expecto Vigiles_ ' at the slightest action from her or the ghosts.

McGonagall closed her eyes. Her shoulders dipped wearily. She looked almost asleep before she opened her eyes again. "Alright Ethan, I concede,"

Ethan's immediate thought was that it was a trap to lower their guard. McGonagall looked up at the House ghosts. "Wardens of our school, please step back. You are dismissed."

The ghosts did not literally step back, but floated backwards away from Ethan and the others. With some sideway glances at one another, they phased through the walls of the hall, out of sight. Ethan glanced up at the portraits that dotted the walls of the Entrance Hall – the painted figures all gawked down in dumbfoundment.

McGonagall slowly extended her right arm forwards, and dropped the wand she had held under her palm. It clattered quietly on the stone floor. "I was not strong enough to forge an ideal solution," she said. "I have no right to keep you from trying to forge yours."

Ethan let out a massive breath, decompressing his nerves. He turned back to Lily, Rose and Torrian. They were a little relieved as well. But this was only one of their obstacles down for the time being. Now they had to get to work.

"Lily, take her wand," ordered Ethan.

Looking bewildered at what she was doing, Lily Summoned McGonagall's wand to her free hand.

"The Room of Requirement. I want it," said Ethan.

"Very well," McGonagall stretched her arm out to the left wall. When Ethan turned, there was a door that wasn't there before.

"I believe that Caretaker Kleaner has already explained some details of how the Room functions," said McGonagall. "The first person who enters the Room is called the host, and the Room shapes itself into anything the host requires."

Ethan stepped towards the door, heart pumping with anticipation. Then McGonagall spoke again. "However, non-magical persons cannot control the Room of Requirement. Only magickind can be host of the Room."

Ethan halted for a moment, stunned by a disappointment he hadn't expected from himself. If the Room worked for him, he could have been practically a wizard inside. But of course, that would be too much of a good thing for him, and he should have known better than to expect that.

Ethan turned back towards Lily and the others. "What are you waiting for? Come on."

As they came up behind him, Ethan tried to twist the doorknob just to confirm McGonagall's words. It was locked tight. He then decided on who would be best to assign control of the Room. "Rose, open the door."

Rose's eyes flew open. "What, me?" she whispered, pointing timidly at herself.

"Yes, you."

"Miss Weasley," McGonagall addressed Rose. "The Room has a mental scanning spell that reads the thoughts of the host. Before entering the Room, focus your thoughts on what you require of it: what shape you like it to take, the objects inside it, and enchantments you would like over it. A helpful technique is to pace in front of the door while focusing, for a higher chance of success."

"Make the Room different from what you saw earlier," Ethan said to Rose. "I want to see what it's capable of."

Still looking half-stunned by earlier events, Rose stepped beside Ethan in front of the door. She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating hard; after several seconds she opened the door.

Behind it was a great vaulted hall, larger than the Great Hall, possibly larger than a soccer field. For a second Ethan looked confusedly into the empty room; then it exploded to life. All manner of objects sprung into existence, filling the giant hall; the cascading bang of them warping in sounded like fireworks. There were wooden crates stacked halfway to the ceiling to Ethan's right, shelves of books and potions lining the wall to Ethan's left. Further down the hall were dusty racks of clothing, stacks of chairs and desks, a table full of spindly-looking brass instruments; all sorts of objects grouped into neat sections between aisles, like a slightly cramped magical department store.

Ethan and the students stepped inside the room, jaws agape at everything inside. "What…what is this place?" asked Lily aloud.

"The Room of Requirement is the most powerful tool of this school," answered McGonagall, entering the room behind them. "The founders created it to serve the school's staff in times of great need. This is the Room's default configuration. We call it the Room of Everything. It contains everything that is stored in the Room, many of which were left here in the course of Hogwarts' long history, including by students who accidently stumbled upon the Room. The school's house-elves have put in tremendous work to organize everything inside; it should contain everything you need for the task ahead of you."

Ethan could no longer see the far end of the Room behind the mounds of objects before him. Never had he ever seen so much magic concentrated in one place…and all of it now at his disposal. But as much as he would like to examine all of the curious items before him, time was of the essence and he had to act efficiently.

"Rose, could you change the Room to what you saw earlier? That little 'base of operations'. I think I'll use that for now."

Rose shut her eyes again and pressed her fingers to her temple. The stone floor and walls began to rumble, and another cascading bang filled everyone's ears as all the objects warped away. In an instant, the gigantic room shrank, its walls and the ceiling rushing towards them, stopping abruptly to form the dimensions of a large classroom. An assortment of detection artefacts then popped into the room; Foe-Glasses, Probity Probes, and Secrecy Sensors set on tables along the walls, and in the middle a large scrying assembly – a brass and wood counter covered in various controls, surrounded by floating circular mirrors.

He didn't see anything new compared to the Rembauble recording; that was fine, he would simply have Rose conjure new objects as he needed them. But there was something he wanted to try summoning, though he doubted there would be any success.

"Rose, you know what a computer is, right?"

"Y-Yes, my family used to have one in the house," she replied.

"I remember. Could you try conjuring one? I'm not picky about the specs, anything will do."

Rose squeezed her eyelids in for several seconds to no effect. "I'm afraid that won't be possible," said McGonagall. "As you know, wizards can only conjure an item after a spell for it has been invented. Unfortunately there is no spell to conjure computers in the Room's spell compendium. And no wizard has yet invented a spell to conjure something so complex as Muggle electronics. If the Room can't conjure an item with a spell, it tries to summon it from its storage. And evidently, there is also no computer stored in the Room itself."

It was worth a shot. "You should put a disclaimer on your Room of Requirement," He turned back to Rose. "Can you put up concealment wards to keep everyone but us from finding and entering this room?"

Rose put her mind to it and the walls momentarily hummed: the sound of the spells being cast.

"I have a suggestion," spoke McGonagall. "You can also command the Room to shift its location anywhere about the castle."

"Good to know," Ethan replied coolly. "Any other helpful tips?"

McGonagall shook her head. "None that currently comes to mind. I suppose I should leave you now. You may speak to Professor Longbottom if you have any further questions about the Room, as he is the most knowledgeable in the Order about its intricacies." She paused and faced Ethan with her head held high, back to being stiff and proper as befitted her.

"Ethan. Should you fail to acquire adequate intelligence by Thursday evening, we will carry onward with the Order's original plan."

Ethan would object, but he supposed he had pushed his luck far enough for the time being. "Hmph. Lily, toss back her wand."

Lily did so and McGonagall caught it deftly. "Just stay out of my way until then," said Ethan. "And I'll show you how this shit is done."

The group watched McGonagall as she opened the door. With her back to them she gave the group a final lingering look. "I wish you all the best of luck." She left and closed the door behind her.

In silence, everyone stared at one another for a several seconds, each trying to gauge the others' level of shock.

"Woah," Lily breathed out, staring wide-eyed at Ethan. "Ethan, you just extorted the Order of the Phoenix."

"You even made McGonagall drop her wand," said Rose with the same look. "You made a mage surrender without lifting a finger."

"Only thanks to the information you guys provided," Ethan replied. "Any of you could have done the same if you were desperate enough."

"I can't believe this is happening." Torrian held his forehead in his palm.

"This was only a roadblock. Now we get to work," said Ethan. "Rose, could you transport the entrance to this Room to the left wall of my office? Left while facing the desk."

The Room shuddered for a moment. Ethan opened the Room's door and found his office behind it. "Good." It was an obvious location, but it shouldn't matter until the Order tried to assault them again.

He went to Rose's side and pointed at the scrying assembly. "Do you know how to use that?" he asked her.

Rose gazed up nervously at it. "I…I don't know. I've never used one before."

"Good enough." Ethan gestured her forward and went with her to the control console. They were seven mirrors surrounding it; one overlooked the front gate of Hogwarts, one watched the entrance of the Three Broomsticks Inn, and the five others were spread over the streets of Hogsmeade.

"The police," Rose said, looking up at the Three Broomsticks mirror. The view was at a far distance of about fifty feet from the front door and at a low angle, giving a nearly straight view of the inn's front. It showed a pair of Ministry police in their blue robes speaking outside the inn door. They then walked to the left down the street, out of the mirror's view.

"Can you move the mirror's view? Follow those police," said Ethan.

Rose stared down at the multitude of controls on the assembly's console. "Err…um…" Her eyes spun about with increasing panic, then a yellowed booklet popped into being atop the counter. It was titled 'MadFrag Security BEHOLDER 2020 Scrying Assembly User Manual'.

Rose turned the cover to a diagram page and scanned over it. She returned her attention to the console and found a group of tiny joysticks, and fiddled with each one until she found the ones controlling the inn's mirror. The mirror's view shifted about wildly until she got a handle on the controls. She brought it to follow the pair of police at steady pace. However, the policemen were only a pair of nondescript blue figures from the mirror's distant perspective.

"Can you bring the view closer? I want to hear what they're saying," said Ethan.

Rose experimented with the controls some more, and got a tiny red blinking light on a corner of the console. She consulted the manual.

"Um, I think that might be too risky. Any closer and the police might detect the scrying eye."

"The scrying eye," Ethan echoed, recalling the meaning of the term from his memories.

"It's what the console controls to allow us to see outside," Rose explained. "Umm…they're like Muggle cameras, but they're actually tiny alt-dimensional wormholes that collect light and sound and transmit it to the scrying mirrors."

"Right," Ethan didn't actually need it, but he appreciated the Muggle-friendly explanation. "Move to the scrying eye around all of the Three Broomsticks' windows."

Rose navigated the displayed view to each of the inn's windows one by one, before finally returning the scrying eye to its original vantage point before the front door. They couldn't spot any activity through the windows.

"Weird," Ethan observed. He had expected the scene to be crawling with police. But their apparent absence presented him an opportunity.

"Rose, stay here and keep an eye on all mirrors for police activity."

He left Rose to the scrying assembly and went over to the nearest table along the walls. He picked up a small brass instrument shaped like a spinning top with a glass dome. "Any of you know what this is?"

Lily ran up to him, Torrian catching up behind. "Ah, that's a Sneakoscope. It lights up and spins when it detects someone nearby being sneaky or dishonest."

"Really?" Ethan thought of a lie. _I really love this fucking school._ The top lay inert in his hand. But something else happened – the Occlumency Charm he wore under his left sock started to heat up. The Charm had to be blocking the Sneakoscope from reading his mind. So it did work after all.

Ethan pocketed the Sneakoscope and moved on swiftly to the next table which held a line of Secrecy Sensors. They were metre-long poles, golden and curved like a tilde, with a rotatable dish mounted on a gimbal. Ethan grabbed one of them and tossed it to Torrian.

"What's this?" Torrian asked, catching it.

"Secrecy Sensor. Detects sneaky and dishonest thoughts within a wide radius. Hold on to that and let me know if it picks something up. Lily, would I be right in saying Sneakoscopes are just weaker, inferior Secrecy Sensors?"

"Um, yeah, I guess. But how do you know about Secrecy Sensors but not Sneakoscopes?" Lily asked confusedly.

The next table contained an array of Foe-Glasses – black obsidian mirrors. Ethan stepped in front of the largest one beside the table. It was tall as he was, circular and suspended on a black wooden frame like a gong. The mirror showed only a dark-tinted reflection of himself and his Occlumency Charm heated up again.

Lily came up beside him and dark silhouettes appeared in the mirror, vaguely human and floating behind Lily's reflection. She let out a small gasp.

"What is it?" asked Torrian.

"Foe-Glass," answered Ethan. "It keeps in mind the people you don't like and will alert you when they get close. The closer they are, the clearer their image becomes." It was essentially facial recognition magic that passively scanned people in a radius, using the holder's memory as the database. "See anyone you recognize, Lily?"

Lily pointed to the largest silhouette, standing over the shoulder of Lily's reflection. "That hair bun – it looks like…McGonagall. And beside her…that's Professor Longbottom…" Her hand fell limply, her face crestfallen.

Ethan took one of the smaller, palm-sized Foe-Glasses on the table and handed it to Lily. "Keep an eye on this."

At the last table Ethan picked up what looked like a thin golden car antenna – a Probity Probe. He retracted it and stuffed it in his robe pocket. Beside the Probe was a gold-framed rectangular mirror, sized like a tablet computer; he pocketed it as well. Probity Probes could detect magic and display the name of the magic on the paired Probity Mirror. This was likely to be his most useful tool for the day.

"Ah, wait, there's one more thing I need," Ethan turned to Rose. "An Anti-Warp Field and Anti-Taboo Field Generator."

An artefact popped out of thin air in front of Ethan. He caught it and looked it over; it was a small cube, with five glass sides with brass edges, filled with black smoke within. The top side was brass, a surface covered in tiny gears, switches and gauges. Under two of the switches were scrawled the labels _'Anti-Warp'_ and _'Anti-Taboo'_.

"Nice, an Obfuscube," Illegal, due to Anti-Taboo Fields being illegal, but very handy. Ethan stowed the artefact in his pocket. "Thank you, Rose. Right, we're ready to go. Could you conjure us a portal inside of the Three Broomsticks?"

Rose assumed her concentrating pose and glared at a spot in front of Ethan, like she was trying to burn a hole through it with laser vision. And then a hole in space opened at the exact spot. Like a window, it opened to a view of the Three Broomsticks pub. Ethan promptly stepped through.

He had gone to the inn once before with Hugo on his first Hogsmeade weekend. Currently, about half the pub area was as he remembered it. The other half was thrashed, strewn with broken chairs and table, shattered glass, and random remains of spells; acid splashes, icicle spears, bird feathers, and some sort of purple slime gently pulsating on the walls.

The owner of the inn, Madam Rosmerta, was cleaning up the room with her wand, repairing broken inventory and dispelling spell effects. She was an elderly woman, stout with grey hair tied in a bun. There was no one else in the room.

"Stop cleaning right now!" Ethan shouted.

Rosmerta flinched in alarm. "W-Who are you? What – Lily? And Torrian – what are you doing here?" Behind Ethan, Lily and Torrian had entered the inn. "Shouldn't you be back at school?" Rosmerta's was a proud and bossy voice, but cracked with age.

Ethan reached inside his pocket and flipped the Anti-Taboo and Anti-Warp switches on his Obfuscube. The portal behind them fizzled and vanished. He took a moment to consider if there was something else he needed to do, to plan for. _It's been nearly a year since I did this. And no fellow Marauders with me this time._ Ethan steeled his heart and mind. _Mission start._

"Um, err," Lily stumbled over her words. "Hi Madam Rosmerta. We err –"

"We're here on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix," announced Ethan. "We hear that the Knights of Walpurgis were just in here. We'd like to ask you some questions."

"And who are you?" asked Rosmerta, leering at him and the grey-coloured lining of his Hogwarts robes.

"I am Ethan Chen."

Ethan watched the innkeeper's face pale and stretch wide in recognition. "You're – you're that Muggle in the Prophet. You killed your family."

Ethan cracked an amused smile. "That's right. But let's focus on what happened here." He turned back to Torrian. "Torrian, could you check if anyone else is in the building? Bring them here if they are."

Torrian didn't move, resistant to taking orders. But Lily gave him a push and he climbed the stairs to the guest rooms.

"Also, try not to touch anything. This is a crime scene," Ethan said to Torrian as he went up.

"'Crime scene'?" Rosmerta puffed up in indignation. "The police already examined the whole building. I've already answered their questions. What right do you have to be here?"

"Rights don't mean anything to me," Ethan replied. "And we're with the Order of the Phoenix. We're conducting our own investigation."

"That's not your job – and why would the Order send – send _you_?" Rosmerta cringed as she regarded him again. Crinkled nose, raised upper lip: disgust.

"Madam Rosmerta, the Order would like your cooperation."

Rosmerta crossed her arms, tightening her wand on her wand. "I'm not saying anything. _Expecto Vigiles."_

Ethan shook his head at her ominously as she realized the police weren't popping in. Next, she tried to Disapparate, only to twirl pointlessly on the spot and stumble over herself.

"Lily, could you lock the door and change the front sign to 'Closed'?"

As Lily did so, Rosmerta gaped aghast at her. "Lily, dear, what are you doing? Why are you with this – _Muggle_?" She hacked out the last word like it was a ball of phlegm.

"I…I'm sorry, Madam Rosmerta," Lily said, unable to look at her directly. "Please listen to Ethan."

"Let's try this again," Ethan stepped towards Rosmerta. "The Order would like your cooperation _willingly_." Rosmerta backed away from him until she hit a table. Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out the Probity Probe.

He extended the golden antenna and pointed it to Rosmerta's head. "Please remove all magical artefacts you're carrying on your person, with the exception of clothing." He pointed to a half-broken table to Rosmerta's right.

Rosmerta reached into the pocket of her apron and placed a multi-mirror on the table.

"Your wand, too," Ethan ordered.

Rosmerta gripped her wand tighter. Her eyes shifted between Ethan and Lily.

"Don't resist, madam," warned Ethan. "Only the guilty resist."

Rosmerta dropped her wand on the table. Ethan flicked a switch on his Probity Probe and slowly waved it over the whole surface of Rosmerta's body. The Probe gave a beep once on her hair and again on the pocket of her apron.

Ethan pulled out his Probity Mirror to read the results. The mirror's surface had turned pitch black, with two lines written in white along the top.

' _Compound enchantment – cellular augmentation – registered: Sleekeazy's Hair Potion – 20% mana – enchantment composition analysis available_ _'_

' _Enchantment – spatial transformation – registered: Undetectable Extension Charm – 95% mana'_

Out of curiosity, Ethan turned the Probity Probe to the Probity Mirror.

' _Artefact – magic detection tool – registered: Probity Mirror – 100% mana – enchantment composition analysis available_ _'_

He raised the Probe to his head. It beeped.

' _Enchantment – mental alteration – registered: Memory Charm – 100% mana'_

Ethan then momentarily pointed the Probe down to his left sock, where he hid his Occlumency Charm.

' _Artefact – Occlumency tool – unregistered – 89% mana – enchantment composition analysis unavailable'_

So Ethan had ascertained that Rosmerta wasn't under any mental enchantments nor wearing any magical disguises. Ethan picked up Rosmerta's wand and multi-mirror from the table and stowed them – as well as the Probity Probe and Mirror – in his pockets.

Torrian returned from the upper floor, looking curiously at the situation as he came down the stairs. "No one else is in the building."

"Good," said Ethan. Now it was time to begin the questioning. Ethan took out his Sneakoscope and set it on the table beside Rosmerta. "Madam Rosmerta, why don't you tell me about your day, starting from the beginning?"

Eventually Rosmerta spoke after much hesitation. "I-I got up at around seven and made myself breakfast. I opened the pub at eight thirty; that was when my staff arrived,"

From her rehearsed tone, she was probably reciting what she had told the Ministry police. "And who are your staff?"

"Oh, I only have four. Jeremy and Tywin, my bartenders; Jacintha, my cook; and Madeline my barmaid."

"Where are they now?"

"They're still at the police station, I think."

"So how are you out so early?" Ethan asked.

"I was the first person they interviewed. And I told them that someone had to take care of the inn…"

"It's barely been an hour and they already released the crime scene?" Even the crime scene of a simple burglary took a least an hour for Muggle police to process. A homicide investigation, or one involving a terrorist, should typically take several days before releasing the crime scene. Ethan turned back to Lily and Torrian. "Is that normal?"

"I don't know," said Lily, both she and Torrian shrugging.

Ethan couldn't be sure if it was the efficiency of their forensic tools or just plain laziness, so he returned to his questioning. "So where were you after the inn opened?"

"I was in my room, doing some bookkeeping. At about a quarter past noon, I went to my root cellar to take inventory."

"Taking inventory? In the middle of the day?" Ethan pressed.

"I just wanted to do a rough check on my current stock. My supplier said it's getting harder to move produce from Muggle farms. He says the Muggles discovered he was a wizard and planted a device in the food, trying to track the location of wizard towns. He has to switch suppliers now, so I was worried about a shortage on tapiocas."

Ethan really didn't need to hear about that segue. But he was interested to have heard the subtly suppressed anger in her tone. It was hardly a clear indication of anything, though.

"Where is your room?" Ethan asked.

"Upstairs, at the very end of the hall," answered Rosmerta.

"Where is the cellar?"

"There's a trap door to it in the kitchen, which is behind the bar."

"When did you come out of the cellar?"

"A-About ten minutes later. I came out the trap door to the kitchen, then out to the pub. I found the police leading people out of the front door."

"There was a bar fight in your pub. You didn't come out then?"

"I-I didn't know. I couldn't hear it. The cellar is magically insulated – nothing gets through the walls."

Ethan made a mental note to inspect the cellar later. "What did you do then?"

"I was confused, so I asked the police what was going on. They told me what happened."

Ethan scratched his chin thoughtfully. "So what exactly do you know about what happened? Don't leave out anything." What she said next was going to be the base from which he would launch all his attacks of suspicion.

"Well, I wasn't there, so all I know is what the police told me. They said that Knights of Walpurgis entered my inn – Ares Graham and Bartholomew Moran – and they started a fight."

Moran had to be the bearded recruiter that Lily mentioned in her recount of events at the inn. "And that's all you know?" Ethan clarified.

"Yes."

"You said you went down the stairs at a quarter past noon; you didn't see Graham or Moran on the way to the cellar?"

"No. I definitely would have contacted the police if I had seen them in my inn,"

Lily said that someone had cast an Anti-Taboo Field over the inn at the time. Anyone could have run out of the inn and called the police, but they didn't. They must have been afraid of consequences from Moran or Graham.

Ethan decided to pull a little trick to test his suspect. "Madam Rosmerta, you know Lily and Torrian, right?"

"Why of course; I've known them since their first year at Hogwarts –" She gave the pair of them a beseeching look.

"Yet you haven't at all asked how they're doing after they got caught up in the bar fight. That's a bit insensitive, don't you think?"

"Oh goodness, it slipped my mind. How are you, dears? It must have been a terrible fright, getting caught in the middle of all that," Rosmerta immediately cooed towards the two of them.

"We're fine, Madam Rosmerta," Torrian replied with a nod. Lily said nothing, her face widening to a realization.

"Yes, they are. But how did you know they were at the bar fight?" remarked Ethan, glaring coldly at Rosmerta. "You didn't look at all surprised when I told you. In fact, you said that it 'slipped your mind'. You said that all you know is what the police told you. And you claim that you were in the cellar before the Knights came, and only came out after the police came. So there's no way you could have known Lily and Torrian were there. You're lying to me," he dropped his tone warningly.

"No, no I'm not!" Rosmerta cried, her pitch rising. "I…I heard it from the customers at the police station. They mentioned that they saw Lily and Torrian,"

"I told you to tell me everything you knew. You can't change your story now!" declared Ethan.

"P-Please, my memory's not what it used to be. I just forgot to mention it, honest to God!"

Awkward pauses in her speech, eyes rolling to her right, a nervous tell in touching her apron; Rosmerta was sending out strong signs of making up her answers as she went. It would seem Ethan had gotten lucky in the first step of his investigation. His instincts had been all but confirmed; Madam Rosmerta was involved with the Knights' appearance. Now he had to wring the truth out of her.

"Wait. She can't be lying," said Torrian; he held up his Secrecy Sensor and pointed to the table beside Rosmerta. "The Secrecy Sensor isn't detecting any lies. The Sneakoscope's not moving either."

Ethan stared at the stationary glass top. "She must be blocking detection with Occlumency."

Rosmerta shook her head and waved her hands emphatically. "Occlumency? Oh no – Occlumency is too advanced for me."

"You have to sign up for classes with the Obliviator Office in order to learn Occlumency," said Torrian. "And even then, few wizards become skilled enough to block a Secrecy Sensor or Sneakoscope."

"That's right. I'm not an Occlumens, so these artefacts not detecting anything means I'm telling the truth!"

Ethan clenched his teeth. With the enormity of the stakes bearing down on him, doubt was seeping into the trust he usually had in his own abilities. Perhaps he hadn't been lucky at all, and had simply jumped to conclusions. Memory is a fickle, impressionable thing; eyewitnesses are notorious for unreliable testimony. Ethan curbed his hopes and marshalled his thoughts.

"Fine. I'll prove you're lying." Keeping a cold eye on Rosmerta, Ethan stretched a hand out behind him. "Lily, can I use your multi-mirror?"

Lily fished out her multi-mirror and handed it to him. Compared to Rosmerta's with an aged spotty glass and dull bronze frame, Lily's mirror was new with pristine glass and a stylish silver frame. It fit in Ethan's hand just like a cell phone, albeit a vastly inferior cell phone capable of holding only four contacts at a time.

"Which button is for Rose?" Ethan gestured to the four tiny mirrors along the right of the frame.

"First one."

Ethan tapped it, and soon Rose came into view. "E-Ethan?"

The 'resolution' of the mirror was much better than that of any cell phone he had ever seen; Rose's face was as clear as if she was right in front of him behind a glass sheet.

"Rose, I need you to look through recorded footage on the scrying assembly. The Order was operating it this morning, right? Check footage from the scrying eye watching the Three Broomsticks. Go backwards from the time you guys entered the inn. I need you to find the exact time when Graham and Moran entered the building."

"Moran?" repeated Rose.

"Bartholomew Moran: the Knight recruiter that you said was proselytizing at the inn."

"Okay, hold on." Rose's face ducked half out of sight. "Let me check the manual…'replay footage'…okay. I'm looking through it now."

The room stayed in awkward, prickly silence as they waited. Ethan watched a close-up view of Rose's taut, focused chin as she stared upwards. Time went by faster than he expected it to.

"I…I think this is them," said Rose after three spacious minutes.

"What do you mean?" said Ethan.

"At twelve-eighteen – there's a time display on the console – the front door opens and closes…by itself," said Rose. "I think it's them, but under either a Disillusionment Charm or an invisibility cloak. I zoomed in as much as I can, but I can't tell from this distance. A Disillusionment Charm would be much more noticeable though, if they walked past anyone on the way to the inn."

"So they came in invisible…to hide where they came from." That was something else to ruminate over, but for now he had to focus on Rosmerta.

"Twelve-eighteen – that's after Rosmerta went to the cellar," said Torrian. "She's clean. She's not a Knight supporter."

"The Knights are evil people. I would never support them," insisted Rosmerta.

"Wait, what's happening?" asked Rose, looking concerned through the mirror. "Madam Rosmerta? Wait," The cogs turned quickly in her head. "Ethan, you suspect that Madam Rosmerta was involved in what happened?"

"Yes," he replied.

"This has gone on long enough," Torrian stomped over behind Ethan. He could feel the guy's frustration looming over his shoulder. "Rosmerta hasn't done anything to deserve this, especially after her inn was thrashed. You don't have any proper evidence against her – all you have is a little trick you pulled after taking her wand and scaring the daylights out of her. She could have you charged with harassment right now."

Ethan knew Torrian would be difficult, but had only expected him to be a little sulky and lodge some sidelong complaints. But this was feeling a little too proactive for his liking.

"Would you shut up, Fraser? I'm trying to think."

"What are you thinking? You're clearly determined to see Madam Rosmerta as guilty. Literally the first person you come across and you treat them with zero respect, which seems to be the way you treat everyone. How do you expect…"

Ethan tuned out Torrian's noises and detached himself from his previous train of thought. If he couldn't prove anything with hard deduction, he had to calm down and think about the crime from the suspect's perspective.

Why…Why was Rosmerta determined to place herself in the cellar at the time the Knights appeared? Because where she really was would incriminate her. And that would be…somewhere upstairs, where Graham was. But other people must have been upstairs at the time; guests in their lodgings. If Rosmerta was with a guest, or in her own quarters, she wouldn't necessarily be implicated.

It would be a different story if she was _with_ Graham, likely in one of the guest rooms. When the bar fight broke out, guests must have poked out their doors, wondering about the commotion. Then Graham emerged, turning all of them into witnesses. So how would Rosmerta get out without being spotted emerging from the same room as Graham?

"Invisibility cloak."

Rosmerta's eyes lit with dread.

"You were with Graham, weren't you? That's why you had to come up with that alibi," said Ethan. "While Graham was speaking to the crowd, you ducked past everyone in his invisibility cloak. You entered the kitchen and burnt the cloak over the stove, dispelling its magic. Then I guess you went to the cellar to hide the cloak somewhere just as the police came in."

Ethan cracked a smug smile. "Let's go the cellar, shall we?" He picked up the Sneakoscope from the table, then gestured to the archway behind the bar, which led to the kitchen. "Lead the way, madam."

Rosmerta pleaded with Torrian with her eyes, hoping for some form of objection. Torrian's face twisted in a grimace, visibly conflicted.

"Madam Rosmerta…please go to the cellar."

Lily spoke quietly as she neared beside Ethan, her wand drawn. Rose, hearing everything through the multi-mirror, remained silent. Slowly, Rosmerta turned around and led the way into the kitchen. The kitchen appliances looked like they came from the seventeenth century, with a wood-fired stove, a brick oven, an icebox, and an iron kettle hanging over a fireplace. In a corner of the room, Rosmerta opened a trap door and led the group of them down the stairs into a stone-walled root cellar.

Ethan scanned the assorted produce stored in racks along the walls. His gaze landed on a stack of grain bags in the near corner to his left.

"Lily, split those grain bags."

Lily slashed with her wand and husked oats spilled out from gashes in the bags. Ethan spotted a peek of silvery cloth under the oats.

"Levitate that out."

From the spilled oats emerged a long shining white cloak: large as a quilt, enough to cover a grown man from head to toe, but charred black in along the edges and around several holes.

Lily sucked in her breath. Torrian's shoulders dropped. Ethan showed the cloak to Rose through the multi-mirror.

"…That looks like an invisibility cloak," she said soberly.

Ethan reached inside his pocket and deactivated the Anti-Warp Field generating off his Obfuscube. "Rose, can you open a portal in here and take the cloak? Levitate it, don't touch it."

A portal opened beside the cloak and Lily levitated the cloak through it. Through the multi-mirror, Ethan watched Rose levitate the cloak beside her by the scrying console. The portal closed again as Ethan flicked the Anti-Warp switch inside his robe pocket. He caught Rosmerta taking note of him doing so. He'd have to stay wary of her trying to escape by making a grab for the Obfuscube or her wand.

"Can you prove that it's definitely an invisibility cloak?" Ethan asked Rose.

Ethan saw only the side of Rose's neck through the mirror. "Hmm…an invisibility cloak is typically made of Demiguise hair, though I don't know if I can identify it without another sample…maybe a forensic test for remnants of an invisibility enchantment …oh, a book appeared. Hold on…yes, there's a potion I can brew, but it'll take about an hour,"

"Good. I'd also like you to pull all trace evidence you can from it; fingerprints, blood, hairs, fibres, dirt, chemicals – can you do that?"

"Trace evidence…? Hmm, I think so. I think there's a spell that can highlight foreign materials on an object, but that's from a novel I read…"

"Good. But don't do either tests right now. Get back to watching the scrying mirrors. Anything suspicious happen so far?"

"Hmm, no. But there's a lot of police going around the neighbourhood, questioning the residents. I also moved one of the scrying eyes to watch the police station, to keep track of the witnesses they release."

"Very good," Ethan much appreciated her initiative. "Call this mirror if anything comes up." He tapped the first button on the mirror, ending the call, and kept it in his pocket.

Ethan turned back to face Rosmerta; while he was glad to have made some progress in his task, he masked it behind a grave glower.

"So, you work for the Knights of Walpurgis. What were you doing with Ares Graham? What did you talk about?"

Rosmerta shook her head vigorously. "N-Nothing – I…I wasn't –"

"You're already proven to work for the Knights. Lie to me again and I will lose my patience."

"I-I'm not…he forced me! The Knights – they threatened me – they said they'd burn the inn if I didn't help him!"

"Wrong. I know you weren't coerced, because if you were, Graham would have wiped your memories before leaving. You have no Memory Charms on you, no Imperius Curse, no contract magic or Unbreakable Vows – you're definitely not a helpless pawn. The fact that Graham gave you his invisibility cloak means one thing; you're still an asset to the Knights."

"That's only a theory," interrupted Torrian. Ethan groaned internally. "Rosmerta's not a supremacist – she fought against the Death Eaters in Voldemort's war. She has no reason to help the Knights willingly!"

"No, there is."

Lily looked at Rosmerta with a sorrowful, wounded gaze. "You told me about your son, half a year ago. He was captured by the Muggle military. He's now at the wizard internment camp in London."

Ethan was neither surprised by nor interested in Rosmerta's motivations. All he cared about was getting the truth out of her.

Ethan stepped menacingly in front of the old woman; Rosmerta shrank back but her feet were paralyzed by fear. He pulled out her wand and held it out horizontally in both hands, inches away from her nose. It was a short wand: nine inches, of light greyish wood faded by the years. Ethan snapped it cleanly in half before her eyes. Then he tossed the two pieces aside to opposite ends of the cellar.

Rosmerta's wrinkled face quivered and contorted like she had been stabbed in the gut. She collapsed to her knees, whimpering. Lily and Torrian looked on, horror-struck.

A wise asshole once told Ethan that interrogation was like being a used car salesman: but instead of selling a shitty car, you had to sell the shitty idea that confessing was the smartest thing to do. Ethan was extremely limited in the tools of persuasion he could use; but unlike the police, he had access to perhaps the most universally effective tool there was, and he would not hesitate to use it as effectively as possible.

"Listen here, Madam Rosmerta," Ethan spoke down to the old woman at his feet. "You and I both know that you work for the Knights of Walpurgis. You're going to tell me everything about your involvement with them. And you're going to drop your Occlumency so I know you're not lying to me. You have lied to me several times already. Lie one more time, and I will not forgive you again. You will pay dearly for it. And then I'll turn you in to the Ministry. Not the police here by the way – I'll take you straight to Harry fucking Potter. But if you cooperate from here on, I will refrain from turning you in. I'll have to remove your memories of this meeting, but I'll let you go on your merry way. I think this is a very fair deal for you."

Once again, Ethan flipped the Anti-Warp switch of the Obfuscube. He pulled out and tapped on Lily's multi-mirror to call Rose. "Ethan? What is it?"

"Can you conjure a portal between the cellar and the school Caretaker's office?"

"The Caretaker? Kleaner's office? Hold on."

A portal opened beside Ethan, and through it he beheld an office so clean and tidy it looked brand new. Behind a desk sat Kleaner, sitting on a chair and a stack of multiple books, reading and jotting notes over another book. When the house-elf heard the portal open, he looked up, yelped, and flew out of his seat.

"S-Sir?" Kleaner squeaked upon climbing back on his stack of books to face him. He not-quite-discreetly swept the parchment he was writing on to the ground.

"Kleaner. I don't suppose you've heard about what happened?" said Ethan.

"Oh yes, all the house-elves is talking about it, sir," Kleaner replied quite animatedly. "Dinner is never being prepared so slowly before."

"Are you still my personal assistant?" asked Ethan.

"The Headmistress says that Kleaner should be providing anything sir is asking for."

Naturally, Ethan was going to engage with Kleaner with a healthy amount of caution. He was definitely going to report back on their meeting to McGonagall. And if given a chance, he could likely sabotage their operation. Still, he didn't want to burden Rose with this request.

"Remember when I asked you for something that could ruin a man's office, and you brought me Permacillin?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now I want something that can destroy an entire building, with no chance of being stopped. Does Hogwarts have something like that?"

"Oh, plenty sir," Kleaner enthused. He momentarily scratched his ear, pondering. "The fastest and most deadly, Kleaner is thinking, is Hogwarts' colony of Terminiters."

Rose reared back. Lily and Torrian winced. Rosmerta gasped.

"Terminiters?" asked Ethan.

"Terminiters is ravenous magical termites, able to eat through almost any substance – steel, diamonds, magical barriers, too. They can consume an entire house in seconds, sir. Hogwarts is keeping one colony of them, always sedated to reduce their appetite. We house-elves is using them to dispose waste, sir."

"That sounds like just what I need," said Ethan with a grin. "Kleaner, I want you to prepare to unleash Terminiters on the Three Broomsticks Inn, when I give the command."

"No! Please!" Rosmerta grabbed onto Ethan's leg. "Not Terminiters! There'll be nothing left!"

Ethan kicked at her arms to dislodge her from him. "If you don't want your inn to become termite food, you know what to do. Go, Kleaner."

"Yes, sir," Kleaner bowed and vanished in a poof.

Ethan took a step back and dropped his Sneakoscope in front of Rosmerta. It bounced lightly on the floor and lay on its side.

"You have ten seconds to start confessing," Ethan started counting down, loudly. "Ten, nine, eight…"

Rosmerta held her face in her hands, breathing like there was no air.

"This isn't right," mumbled Torrian. "You can't do things like this."

"…seven, six, five, four…"

Kleaner popped back into his office, holding a jar as tall as himself, filled with termites; not white like regular ones but metallic, a writhing, glinting ball of them suspended in the air within the jar. "I have the Terminiters, sir."

"Good," said Ethan. He turned to Lily's multi-mirror. "Rose, make us a portal back to the Room. This building's about to go down. In three, two –"

The Sneakoscope on the ground lit up in its glass dome and started to spin with a high-pitch whistle. Torrian's Secrecy Sensor gave off a hum and the dish on its end vibrated in its gimbal.

"Okay, I'll tell you everything. Just please, not the inn…" Rosmerta mumbled to the ground.

Lily gaped down at the spinning Sneakoscope, then at Rosmerta. "So you _are_ an Occlumens…"

Rosmerta sniffed and gulped, steadying her voice. "I…I was _Imperiused_ by a Death Eater once, long ago. I nearly got an innocent girl killed. After that, I decided to take Occlumency classes so I could feel safe again."

"Hold on to that jar, Kleaner. I'll call you if I need it," Ethan reactivated his Obfuscube's Anti-Warp Field and the portal to Kleaner's office disappeared. "Start talking," He commanded Rosmerta. "What do you do for the Knights of Walpurgis?"

"…P-People come to my inn, and I'd talk to them, or join their conversation," Rosmerta spoke softly, her voice flat with resignation. "I ask them how they feel about the war. If…if they wanted to fight back, I'd – I'd arrange a meeting."

"I see," said Ethan, his voice hard. "So you're a scout. A recruiter for the Knights. What were you doing today with Graham?"

"I had arranged for him to meet with some people who wanted to join, after the Muggle attack two nights ago."

"How many? What are their names?"

Rosmerta's hunched body shivered. "F-Five. Umm…I don't know their names –"

"Are you kidding me? How can you not know their names?" Ethan intoned angrily.

"They – they gave me fake names, for their own safety," squeaked Rosmerta, facing the ground.

"Which room?"

"103 – third on the left, from the stairs."

"So what happened in the room?"

"Graham asked each one why they wanted to join the Knights. They all gave similar answers. V-Vengeance for themselves and all the others who lost their homes."

 _A terrorist job interview,_ Ethan thought sardonically _._ He then realized that he had neglected to consider something very important about the course of events in the inn. "And what about your staff? Where were they during this? Are they involved?"

Rosmerta's voice caught in her throat, giving a raspy pause. "N-No. It's just me."

Ethan suddenly remembered something, something that could render everything Rosmerta just revealed moot. He had been too hasty to acquire information, or maybe a part of him didn't want to face what he'd have to do.

"Is that all you know?" Ethan asked darkly.

"Y-Yes. That's all I know."

Ethan looked down at the floor between him and Rosmerta. The Sneakoscope still continued spinning, and Torrian's Secrecy Sensor was still vibrating. It seemed he would have to do it after all.

"You don't know how these magical lie detectors work, do you?"

Rosmerta gave him a blank look. That was expected; after all, Ethan had only just remembered it himself. He had only worked with Secrecy Sensors a couple of times before as a Marauder.

"They activate when someone in the area is having sneaky or dishonest thoughts. When you said 'that's all I know', that Sneakoscope was supposed to stop spinning, because you have nothing left to hide. But it's still spinning, and that Secrecy Sensor is still vibrating."

Just after he finished explaining, the Sneakoscope slowed to a stop. The Secrecy Sensor's vibrating slowed but did not stop.

"And now you're just trying to use Occlumency again." Ethan gave a deep sigh. "So the only way to make sure you give me the truth, is to remove your Occlumency." And there were only a couple of ways he had to do that. Neither of which were going to be pleasant for anyone.

"Rose, I need a portal to Kleaner's office again."

Kleaner's office reappeared upon Ethan turning off his Anti-Warp Field. Kleaner gave a start from tapping at the jar of Terminiters on his desk.

"Kleaner, I need something that can deliver a strong electric shock," said Ethan.

"Electric shock?" Kleaner echoed.

"Yes, like the Crystal Lightning I got from Professor Thomas when I dealt with Crawford. But I had to give them back afterwards. Can you get me more, or something similar, capable of breaking through Occlumency?"

Kleaner's large face betrayed doubt, but only for a moment. "Yes, sir. Kleaner will find something." He bowed and vanished.

The silence thereafter was piercing; Ethan could feel the sheer horror from Lily and Torrian stabbing his back. Rosmerta went from soft whimpering to completely catatonic.

"Are…are you really going to – to use electricity on Madam Rosmerta?" Rose asked, horrified.

"I don't have a choice." Electricity disrupts magic, after all.

"But – but she's an old woman," said Rose fearfully. "There could be permanent nerve damage – w-what if her heart –" She couldn't finish her sentence.

"She should have thought about that before helping the Knights," Ethan replied.

"There has to be another way," Rose insisted. "How about a spell that can cause nausea or drowsiness, weakening her concentration. Like _Soporos_ –"

"That's a mental spell. Also resisted by Occlumency." said Ethan.

"Umm, sound magic can cause nausea, too. Or alcohol –"

"That's not how it works and you know that. The Occlumency shielding is already in effect. It can only be dispelled through electricity or collapsed with physical force."

"T-The Probity Probe –"

"It can't detect Occlumency. Because Occlumency's not magic. It's anti-magic," To demonstrate, Ethan temporarily pulled out the Probe and waved it at Rosmerta to no response. "See? Nothing, even though she just used Occlumency."

"Wait, what about Veritaserum? Veritaserum can overpower her Occlumency."

"Well, is there any in the Room?" Ethan asked, already knowing the answer to that question.

Rose scrunched her face trying to summon it. Her face fell upon looking around to find nothing. Ethan knew there was no Veritaserum as he had already seen the potion shelves in the Room of Everything. He would have brought the truth-telling potion along from the beginning if it were available.

"Maybe Slughorn has it – or we can ask someone to use Legilimency on her –"

"No; we can't ask the Order for help."

"Why not? You're asking Kleaner for help."

"If Slughorn instead gives us a potion that wipes her memories, then we lose our lead. And if we hand Rosmerta to the Order for Legilimency, they could keep the info they get from her for themselves. They'll likely give us false info to put us on a false trail, to keep us safer until Thursday. The Order will easily beat us to any valuable intel if we give them Rosmerta. Remember what the mission is. This is a race,"

Kleaner popped back into his office, but he was empty-handed.

"Kleaner is sorry, sir, but Kleaner cannot find anything in the school that meets sir's request. Kleaner was asking Professor Thomas, but professor said he just used the Crystal Lightning he had in a class demonstration. Professor Slughorn has no Veritaserum either for overpowering Occlumency."

Ethan didn't want to do it earlier, but unfortunately, he now had to try.

"Rose, I need you to conjure me something that can deliver an electric shock."

Rose held her breath and looked like she stopped breathing. In her silence, Ethan elaborated.

"I'd prefer Crystal Lightning, but if there's no magical item in the Room you can conjure something simple instead. A stun gun or a cattle prod, or just a battery with two jumper cables."

Rose looked away from the screen of her mirror, wincing like she was in pain. Ethan waited for several heavy seconds.

"…Nothing's appearing," she mumbled.

"Are you concentrating properly?"

"I…I can't summon anything."

"You can't or you won't?" Ethan asked severely.

Rose couldn't say anything.

"Listen to me. Madam Rosmerta supports the Knights of Walpurgis. They hurt people on a daily basis. And they're the main reason Muggles are terrified of wizards. Do you want to change that? Then help me!"

Ethan could only see Rose's red hair as her head was bowed. "…M-Maybe I can make Veritaserum…no, the brewing takes too long…maybe…there has to be another way…"

Ethan shouted. "Rose, either I hurt her a little with electricity, or hurt her a lot with blunt force. This is what it takes, Rose! Give me something!"

"I…I'm sorry, I can't."

Rose's fell out of frame of the multi-mirror. All Ethan could see was the clay-coloured stone floor.

He turned back to Lily and Torrian.

"Well, will either of you volunteer to use an electric spell?" Neither of them gave any reaction.

Ethan let out a short huff. "Alright then." He steeled his heart and mind once again.

He reared his right arm back and swung down hard, landing his fist to the side of Rosmerta's head. Rosmerta hit the floor on her side. He heard two audible gasps behind him. He pulled Rosmerta up by the blouse and punched her again.

"Even after I threatened to destroy your home, you _still_ think you can get past me," He pulled her head up by the hair and yelled in her face. "Do you have _any idea_ who you're dealing with?!"

He punched her again, aiming for the temple. He had to beat her brain around until her Occlumency shielding fell apart. He didn't know how many punches that would take, but hopefully it was somewhere short of a concussion.

He raised his arm to strike again, but it got caught in an immovable grip.

"That's enough! Let her go!" demanded Torrian, holding Ethan's wrist.

"Kleaner. Restrain Fraser."

Kleaner leapt out of his portal and a cast Disarming Spell at Torrian; in a flash of red light, his fingers were forced open. Kleaner followed up with a shockwave that threw Torrian to the right cellar wall. He then transfigured steel shackles out of the wall, fastening over his wrists and ankles, and reinforced them with a glowing blue barrier. Torrian struggled to break free, but Kleaner continued to channel more power into the barriers to resist him.

Ethan knew he had to work fast. "What did you lie about earlier?" He bellowed at Rosmerta. "Is it the names of the recruits? Tell me their names!" He struck her again.

"Torrian! Lily! Help me!" Rosmerta screamed.

"No one can help you," Ethan roared. "Except me. Tell me their names!"

"I don't know! I swear I don't know!" The old woman cried, feebly raising her arms to block him. There was a loud snapping sound, and the clatter of metal hitting the floor. Torrian had already freed one of his arms.

Ethan grabbed Rosmerta by the chin and twisted her head to him, forcing her to look at him.

"Now for the million-dollar question: How did Ares Graham get into Hogsmeade?"

"What?" Rosmerta wheezed, her eyes dazed. "What do you –?"

"You know what I'm talking about. One month ago, the Ministry enacted a new law. All wizards Apparating into a town or village must first report to the local police station. If they don't, the police will track down the person for questioning and a fine. Assuming the police aren't bribed or horribly incompetent, Graham must have a hideout where he warped in from. A hideout with a blind zone."

"Is the blind zone here?" He scrutinized her face for signs of the truth, but she was such a bundle of fright it was impossible to read for lying or nervous tells anymore. "Is the blind zone here? Yes or no?!"

"No! No!"

"Where? The house of another supporter?"

Rosmerta said nothing. Ethan punched her again.

"Where is the blind zone?!" Ethen grabbed her throat and forced her to face him once more. In the midst of his fury he received a brainwave. "It's one of your staff, isn't it?"

Rosmerta's eyes quaked in their sockets. "No! _No!_ "

"Who is it? WHO IS IT?"

"I…I can't – he'll kill me if I…"

"I will kill you and do a lot worse if you don't tell me where the blind zone is, RIGHT NOW!"

Ethan flew sideways off his feet, and the next thing he knew, his head rang against the left cellar wall.

With just a palm to his chest, Torrian had nailed Ethan to the wall, his feet hanging off the ground. Kleaner lay on the floor, unconscious from magical exhaustion.

"Enough! You're going too far!"

Ethan made a token effort of prying himself free, but Torrian's arm was as solid as a stone pillar. Not as dense as the brain that controlled it, though. "You got to be fucking kidding me."

"Ethan! Ethan! Where are you?!"

Ethan had dropped Lily's multi-mirror when Torrian slammed him to the wall. Rose's frantic face flew into its still-smooth surface.

"Ethan, I just saw – it's Uncle – it's Harry Potter! He just entered the inn!"

Rosmerta scrambled to her feet and made a break for the stairs.

"Stop her!" Ethan yelled to Lily.

But Lily did not move – she stood completely frozen, staring wide-eyed at Rosmerta as she came at her. Rosmerta knocked Lily aside and ran up the stairs.

"Help me! Help me!" Rosmerta screamed as she climbed out.

"Fucking idiots! You let her get away!" Ethan yelled. "Rose! Get us out of here, _NOW!_ "

An enormous hole opened in the floor under all of them; Ethan fell through a brief darkness before landing on all fours upon the golden-brown stone of the Room of Requirement.

Kleaner sat up from the floor, holding onto his swaying head. Lily and Torrian wobbled up, disoriented. Ethan leapt to his feet and yelled to Rose at the scrying assembly.

"Rose! Recast all concealment wards over the Room!" Ethan shouted. "Fortify the walls with barriers! And teleport this Room somewhere else – put us in the lowest floor of the dungeons!"

Rose had started towards them out of worry, then stopped to take Ethan's orders, putting her fingers to her temple. Yet he couldn't hear the walls humming or shuddering to indicate she was following through. He stormed past her to scan the feeds from the scrying mirrors.

There was nothing peculiar in any of the feeds yet, but soon there may an army of Aurors marching through Hogwarts' gates. It was only a matter of time before Rosmerta told Harry Potter everything – and soon Harry Potter would be banging on the walls of the Room. Ethan played out the worst-case scenario in his head: Harry Potter learns about the deal with the British government, breaks in, and hands him to either the Order or the Ministry.

What could he do to stop that? He could meet Potter first, tell his side of the story, and make the best case for letting him carry on. Weak, not likely to work – maybe supplement it with a threat to expose his role in capturing Ethan to the Daily Prophet. But how was he supposed to do that while getting besieged by Aurors? Also, in all cases, Potter would want Lily, Rose and Torrian out of the Room and the entire situation. There didn't seem to be a way for him to survive. But what if…maybe if he took a hostage…

Harry Potter emerged from the door of the Three Broomsticks, flanked by two more Aurors with their matte grey robes. But there was no Rosmerta. Potter pulled out and unfurled a long roll of parchment.

Rose was still trying to cast the protective wards over the Room, but seemed to have lost the ability to do so in her condition. Ethan called her over. "Rose –bring that scrying eye closer – I need to hear what they're saying."

Rose hesitantly came up beside him. "But, what if they detect it?"

"Doesn't matter. Just do it."

Rose took the controls of the scrying console and moved the scrying eye closer to the Aurors. Soon Harry Potter's voice emitted from the mirror.

"…Damn it, can't find her. She Disapp-ed to a blind zone," Potter grumbled with great frustration, pouring over what was appeared to be a map.

"What is that?" Ethan asked Rose.

"I-I think it's an Oculus Map. It displays data from the Ministry's Oculus, capable of tracking spells and people all over Britain. I think he came outside for a better connection to the Ministry."

"A blind zone?" commented one of the accompanying Aurors. "That means she's a suspect."

"…Yes. Damn it." Potter rolled up the Oculus Map and returned it inside his robes. "I shouldn't have repaired her wand."

"You couldn't have known, sir."

"I didn't know you could repair a wand with just _Reparo._ I was sure that damage was permanent."

"I could only do that thanks to the Elder Wand," said Potter.

"Oh thank God," Ethan expelled a humongous sigh of relief. Apparently, Rosmerta Disapparated right in front of Harry Potter without telling him anything. Otherwise he would not be standing around talking about his mistake. "I'm not screwed yet."

In a whirl of navy blue cloak, two police officers Apparated in front of the Aurors.

"Auror-General – we detected a couple of cast spells in the building," said one of the officers.

"Chief Inspector Brooks – yes, someone else was just here, questioning the innkeeper, Rosmerta Marchand. There were bruises on her face and her wand was broken. There are iron shackles in the cellar, transfigured from the wall, traces of _Protego_ on them."

"That's what we detected," said Brooks.

"I also detected traces of portal magic in the cellar, as well as Anti-Warp and Anti-Taboo Fields. When we entered, Madam Marchand ran up to us from the cellar, calling for help. She didn't say who attacked her; she Disapparated into a blind zone."

"Wait, if her wand was broken, how did she Disapparate?" asked Brooks.

"That was my mistake; I repaired her wand," Potter said plainly. Then his tone turned severe. "That however, does not excuse _your_ poor judgement. Why was Madam Marchand released so early from the station? And why is the crime scene already released?"

"I-I'm sorry, Auror-General. I-We didn't believe Madam Marchand was related to the case. We thought it was a simple pub brawl. We didn't learn about the presence of Graham and Moran until we questioned more witnesses."

"How was that not the first thing you heard when you gathered the witnesses?" exclaimed Potter. He shook his head with his hands on his hips.

"This is a suspected Dark wizard conspiracy, so the Auror Office is taking control of the case," Potter declared. "Perkins, put out a wanted notice for Rosmerta Marchand to the media and all DMLE offices."

"Yes, sir." The Auror to Potter's right promptly Disapparated.

"I'll also be sending a report to Internal Affairs about your judgement and lack thereof," Potter said to Brooks. Suddenly he paused, and stared into the distance behind Brooks, only a slight angle off from staring directly at the nearby scrying eye.

"Pull back, now!" Ethan ordered Rose.

As Rose scrambled to pull the scrying eye back to its earlier position, they heard the last words of the conversation below.

"Do you have scrying eyes out here?"

"No, we don't. We're forwarding the request to Oculus Control."

"The Auror Office will handle that now. We'll be mobilizing Oculus scrying around Hogsmeade, effective immediately. Inform your men so they can verify any scrying eyes they detect as ours…"

The police officers nodded and Disapparated. Potter and the other Auror returned into the inn.

With the panic in his bloodstream subsiding, Ethan turned away from the scrying assembly and took stock of his current position. It was precarious, but acceptable relative to the myriad ways it could be worse right now. Thoughts about how he could have handled things better seeped in – like maybe if he had brought Rosmerta back to the Room before questioning her – but there would be time to review himself later. There was a chance he had already lost the best intelligence he could have acquired, but there were still leads to follow, things to be done. But he would have to sort a few things out in his own house first.

He picked Lily's multi-mirror from the floor and kept it in his pocket. Then he went to Kleaner and helped him to his feet.

"Oh thank you, sir. Kleaner is sorry he could not hold Mr. Fraser for long."

"Don't be sorry, Kleaner. You were a great help. You are dismissed for now. I assume you'll be reporting everything you saw to McGonagall?"

Kleaner gave a cringing smile. "Sorry, sir."

"Rose, you can forget about the wards for now. Can you conjure a portal for Kleaner back to his office?" said Ethan.

"I'll…I'll try," Rose stretched an arm and focused; a tiny portal opened beside Kleaner. Kleaner bowed and leapt through it; it dissipated behind him.

"I see you can control the Room again," remarked Ethan. Rose looked away without a word. Ethan turned to the large unresolved conflict in the room: Torrian Fraser, with Lily standing shaken behind him.

"That was despicable," said Torrian, his face lined in furious shadow.

"It would have been a little less despicable if any of you could have provided some electricity," Ethan replied.

"Violence and intimidation don't work. You could have gotten your information if you had just treated her fairly from the beginning."

Ethan had to take a second to process the wilful absurdity encased in what he just heard.

"Oh God. You're actually dumber than I suspected." He crossed his arms in exasperation, which hurt quite a bit due to having strained a shoulder muscle.

"Even the nicest methods that police use to interrogate terrorists would still involve detaining her for days, which we don't have the time for. And then we'd have to dangle treats in front of her, like a lowered sentence and witness protection, which we can't do either. There's a thing called 'context' – do you know what that means?"

"If you can't do things right, you shouldn't do it at all. You're as bad as the Knights," said Torrian.

Ethan really couldn't be bothered to argue ethics with a meathead, but he needed to assert his authority or he'd lose Rose's and Lily's help.

"'Bad as the Knights?'" Ethan sneered. "You know nothing about me. Or what I've done."

"I know you killed your own family. You admitted it back at the inn."

"Wow," Ethan uttered dryly. "Did you know? There's a phenomenon in this world that some people refer to as a 'lie'. It is an untrue statement made with the intent to deceive others. Obviously you're not familiar, because you knew Madam Rosmerta for six years and you never noticed when she became a Knight supporter. Whereas I had never spoken to her before and I saw it immediately. And still you kept believing her when she said she wasn't until the very moment she confessed."

Torrian ground the teeth in his clenched jaw.

"You have a certain way of thinking that's very ill-suited for this mission. So please, let other people do the thinking. Lest you put Lily in danger again."

In Torrian's sullen silence, Ethan faced Lily and Rose. "Either of you have any objections?"

Both of them shook their heads.

"Good. We have a long list of things to do now," Ethan cooled his mind with a moment's pause. It was truly a long series of tasks ahead.

"Did any of you see the Three Broomsticks staff when you were in there earlier today?"

It took a while for the three wizards to orient their minds to processing his question.

"I…I'm not sure," said Lily. "Everything happened so fast. I never thought to – wait…the bar. The bar was empty."

Rose rubbed her chin. "Yes…the bartender wasn't behind the bar. I think it's supposed to be Jeremy – he takes the day shift. Madeline – the barmaid – I don't think I saw her in the inn either."

"What does that mean?" Torrian leered at Ethan. "Is that supposed to mean they're Knights as well?"

"Maybe. Maybe not," replied Ethan. "But it would be awfully risky for Rosmerta to host recruitment meetings in her inn if most or all of her staff weren't also in on it. She's been doing it for a while, I'd wager. But I'll worry about that later. Rose."

"Y-Yes?"

"Teach the three of us how to operate the scrying assembly."

"O-Oh. Okay," Rose awkwardly led them to the scrying console and explained the controls to them. Ethan thought they were awfully clunky and unintuitive, but woes about interface user-friendliness were things that ordinary, law-abiding people got to enjoy – a life that he destroyed a long time ago.

"Lily, Torrian, I want you to watch over the scrying feeds," Ethan said once Rose concluded her instruction.

"Hey, it's –" Lily pointed up at the scrying mirror that overlooked the school gates. "It's my Dad! He's talking to McGonagall!"

Harry Potter was indeed speaking to McGonagall at the school gates, Mr. Potter displaying accusatory body language while McGonagall stood calmly still.

"Of course he is. He knows it was most likely the Order that questioned Rosmerta and scared her away."

"Will McGonagall tell my father about us?"

"If she does, we're screwed, but so is she. We're fine for now."

"You two keep an eye on him and all the other mirrors," Ethan addressed Lily and Torrian. "Rose, the invisibility cloak."

Rose and Ethan stood before the burnt invisibility cloak that Rose left levitating to the side of the scrying assembly.

"You said you could examine it for trace evidence? Can you summon everything you need?"

With some concentration, Rose summoned a large desk under the burnt cloak, along with a book titled _Magical Forensics_ , a variety of potion glassware, potion ingredients, and a cauldron beside the desk. Ethan pulled out Rosmerta's multi-mirror from his pocket. "Check this for trace evidence as well. If someone calls, let me know, but don't answer it."

Rose nodded and started lighting the cauldron fire. Ethan stopped her.

"One more thing before you get started," He pointed to the wall between the Room of Requirement and his office. "Could you make a small glass window over here, with the same wards as the walls, but allowing a conversation to pass through it?"

Rose created the window as commissioned. Ethan left her to conduct her forensics and strolled up to the glass window. It was just large enough for someone outside to view his head and shoulders, small enough to keep the activities behind him out of sight.

"Kleaner," He said to the window.

Kleaner poofed inside Ethan's office and dropped to his customary bow. "Sir – how may I help you?"

"Is Professor Ellery back from questioning yet?"

"Yes sir."

"Bring her and Professor Longbottom to this office, please. I want to speak to them."

"Yes sir," Kleaner disappeared; Ethan killed the time waiting by watching Rose, Lily and Torrian, while trying to ignore the hot pain in his shoulder. Rose shuffled between mixing potion ingredients and consulting _Magical Forensics_ , while Lily and Torrian appeared to be in the middle of a 'row', as they say in Britain. Ethan tried not to make any assumptions about what they were quarrelling about.

Kleaner poofed back into the office and opened the office door. In entered Ellery and Longbottom, and they both conjured chairs to sit on so they could face Ethan at a level height through the small window.

"Afternoon to you both," greeted Ethan cordially. "Professor Ellery, I don't think we've meet."

"We haven't, but you've already given me quite an impression, Ethan." Ellery's voice was thick and deep to match her muscular frame. She made Professor Longbottom look like a sickly sapling beside her and would have looked like a star contender inside a MMA ring. It wasn't hard to have spotted her around the school, given her stature, but Ethan knew nothing about her other than that she headed the Hufflepuff House and taught Ancient Runes.

"Caretaker Kleaner has told us in the Order about Madam Rosmerta," said Longbottom, wincing at his own words. "Some of us have misgivings about what you did…but we can't deny that you…that you've made progress quickly."

"The Headmistress has instructed us to give you any assistance you require. Until Thursday evening," said Ellery. "Is that what you've called us for?"

"Yes. I heard you were staking out the inn today. When did you start?" asked Ethan.

"From eight-fifty in the morning. Just five minutes after it opened. About every hour, I went out and returned in a different disguise to not draw too much suspicion."

"I need to view your memory of that stakeout. Until the point you returned to the Room of Requirement. I will need a Pensieve to view it in, of course. I also need all the information you have on all refugees that are currently staying at Hogwarts. Their names, address – or I suppose former address – their faces, and any history you may be aware of."

Ellery gave Ethan a searching look, then nodded. "I will speak to the Headmistress about it." She stood up and left the office.

"Professor Longbottom, McGonagall told me that you're an expert on the Room of Requirement?" said Ethan.

Longbottom gave a noncommittal combination of a shrug and nod. "No one knows everything about the Room, not even the ghosts. But in this school, I _do_ have the most experience in using it."

"This Room is incredibly powerful," said Ethan. "But I want to know – if I were to capture the Knights of Walpurgis and imprison in this Room…how long would I be able to hold them?"

Longbottom leaned back in his conjured chair with an intake of breath. "Ah, I see. Well, if you put them in warded cells created by the Room…no wizard should be able to break out on their own."

"But what about mages?" asked Ethan.

Longbottom looked aside, appearing to conjure some memories in his head. "Mages…you'll be able to hold them, but not for long. Over twenty years ago, a Dark mage called Voldemort took over this school. The professors used the Room of Requirement to fight him, to kill him. But they couldn't. I heard that Voldemort broke through the Room in about two minutes."

Ethan had read about Tom Marvolo Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort, in his History of Magic textbook. A wizard once so feared that his name was taboo, ultimately slain by seventeen-year-old Harry Potter. It was something he would be highly sceptical of if he hadn't done some pretty crazy things himself.

"And Ares Graham? How long do you think he would take?"

"Graham…" Longbottom shut his eyes; he appeared afflicted by an unpleasant memory. "It's not clear how powerful he is compared to Voldemort. There are rumours…but nothing certain. But what we do know is that he is extremely, extremely dangerous."

Longbottom looked up at Ethan, his expression deathly serious. "Don't try to capture Graham. Don't even go near him. I know you don't trust the Order, but you know we don't want you or the students to come to harm. So please believe me on this – Graham is not a man you can take down. Not now."

"You sound like you know him."

"Graham…he used to be an Auror," Longbottom said quietly. "My senior; a lieutenant in the Dark Crimes Division. He was the most skilled duellist I had ever seen. But one day…he killed a member of the Wizengamot, and he fled to Yemen, out of our reach. That was twenty years ago. I don't know much after that, but I hear he travelled the world, working as a mercenary for many different groups. I don't know when, but some time in those years he became a mage, and a year before the Revelation, the Knights of Walpurgis emerged again, with Graham as their second-in-command."

A fascinating story, but one that Ethan had already heard of before. He knew very well what mages were capable of, so the gravity of Longbottom's warning was not lost on him. But if there was any intelligence he could gather in three days of value to MI7, Graham was the clearest key to it. If nothing else yielded results, Ethan had to consider all options.

"I understand. We will stay as far away from Graham as possible," said Ethan. "You can go now,"

Longbottom nodded and made a move to stand, but then paused. "Ethan, if you don't mind…can I speak to the others for a bit?"

"Are you going to persuade them to stop helping me?"

"No, I'm not. I just want to know how they're doing."

There was absolutely no clear benefit to letting him speak to the others, but many potential risks. "Why should I?"

"I have a piece of information that may be useful to you, but I'll only give it to Lily, Rose and Torrian."

Ethan smirked. Perhaps Longbottom was shrewder than he appeared after all. "Fine. Five minutes." Ethan turned around and headed towards the others. Longbottom could be bluffing, but he needed all the information he could get. If Lily, Rose and Torrian could be persuaded to leave him at this point, then so be it. His life was at the mercy of their courage and kindness. He never asked for their help in the first place; morally speaking, it would be unfair of him to keep things from them after they were the ones who got him this far.

Or maybe he just liked making life difficult for himself.

* * *

"Okay…so this joystick is for vertical movement and this is for horizontal movement…"

Lily was having a hard time taking in Rose's instruction on how to operate the scrying assembly. A part of her was still paralyzed back at the cellar of the Three Broomsticks. Everything happened so fast, the scene replayed in slow motion in her head, as if her mind was just now catching up to what she saw. Rosmerta cowering on the floor, Ethan punching and screaming at her, Torrian stepping in…and her letting Rosmerta get away.

And now her father was heading the Ministry's investigation of Ares Graham's appearance at the inn. Spying on the Knights of Walpurgis sounded hard enough; the thought that they had to do that _while_ evading Harry Potter and the Auror Office made her queasy.

"You two keep an eye on him and all the other mirrors," Ethan addressed Lily and Torrian. "Rose, the invisibility cloak."

Ethan left with Rose to the burnt cloak they recovered from the inn. After a few words with her, he left towards a small window that Rose created in the wall between the Room and his office.

The moment Ethan was out of earshot, Torrian fumed out loud.

"This is out of hand. We need to get out of here. Rose, make us a portal out of here."

Rose, just lighting up the cauldron fire, turned to Lily with a troubled look. Lily understood; this was her problem to take care of.

"You can go if you want," said Lily, staring up at the scrying mirrors. "But I'm staying here."

"You can't be serious," Torrian rounded on her. "After what he did – that was sickening. Did you not feel sickened? Seeing someone beat down a defenceless woman?"

"Yes, I know what he did was – horrifying – but you got to understand – his life is on the line. Of course he's going to be on edge–"

"That wasn't 'on edge', Lily," hissed Torrian. "He was torturing Madam Rosmerta! How can you be okay with that?"

"I'm not!" Lily rounded back on him, voice raised, but trying to keep it out of Ethan's range. "How can you even assume that I am?"

"You didn't try to stop him!"

"Because I didn't have a better solution! It's his life in danger, Torrian! So he's in charge!"

"It's not just _why_ he did it…it's the _way_ he did it…I can't help someone who's that okay with hurting others. Just – the way he acts, the way he speaks –" Torrian pointed over at Ethan, who was watching them row from a distance. "– He's ice cold. Do you know _anyone else_ our age who's like that? Rose is smart too, but she's not like him. This guy is not normal. The bad kind of not normal."

Lily had heard similar concerns today from Jessamine and Delfina and fought with them over it, but now found she had no proper retort to Torrian. After all, she didn't know Ethan's thoughts, and didn't really examine his face while he was hurting Rosmerta.

"I still don't understand why we're doing this – why are we helping him?"

"Well we haven't helped him _that_ much – the two of us just kinda got in his way," said Lily. So far, only Rose was proving talented enough to be useful to Ethan.

"He called us idiots."

"He's not wrong about me, at least. I could have Stunned her, but I just…stood there."

"I blanked out as well," said Rose softly, slowly grinding some herbs in a mortar and pestle. "I should have given Ethan something with electricity."

"No you shouldn't," said Torrian forcefully. "We shouldn't be doing any of this. Look, I understand if the two of you think it's the right thing to do – but this is beyond us. It's not worth risking our lives!"

"None of us are in danger yet," Rose commented while stirring the cauldron. "If we are, then we'll back away."

Lily understood Torrian's worries; his was the sane opinion of their predicament. And she appreciated that he was sticking around solely for her sake. But what she did not appreciate was him trying to force Rose and her to change their minds, sowing doubt in their heads; Lily had enough of that on her own.

"We already made our decision, Torrian," Lily stated firmly. "We're not leaving. Stop telling us what to do. If you want to leave, you can go any time. Just ask Rose to open a portal – for yourself."

Torrian palmed his forehead and shook his head with an exasperated sigh. "…I'm not leaving without you."

Lily crossed her arms, staring at the scrying controls. She should have felt touched, enamoured by his devotion…yet for some reason she felt nothing. "…Thank you. I appreciate you staying here for my sake."

Torrian lifted his face and gave her a small smile. "Of course. I won't let anything happen to you, Lily."

Lily returned a nod, then kept her eyes up at the scrying mirrors. She avoided facing or talking to him using the excuse of diligently performing her assigned task. Her father had just finished speaking to McGonagall and was swiftly striding back down to Hogsmeade. Police and Aurors were all over the village, going door-to-door and showing the residents posters of Graham and Moran.

A minute later, Ethan came up to them.

"Lily, Rose, Torrian – Professor Longbottom wants to talk to you. Keep it to five minutes. He says that he has some useful information for us. Make sure he gives it to you."

Rose needed a moment to put her brew at a stable condition; she lowered the cauldron fire and charmed the ladle to stir on its own, then the three of them went to the small window. Professor Longbottom sat on a chair on the other side. It sort of resembled a prison visit to Lily, though that wasn't a helpful perspective for her to think about.

"How are you guys doing?" Longbottom asked, trying to put on an encouraging smile, though it came out nervous and queasy-looking instead.

"We're okay," Lily replied, in the same confident tone as him.

Longbottom glanced around the corners of the window. "So you got the Room of Requirement. We – the staff and I – we saw a recording of what happened in the Entrance Hall. It's quite amazing, how you convinced Headmistress McGonagall to give it to you."

"It was Ethan who did that, not us," Rose corrected.

"And it was more like extortion," added Torrian.

"Hmm…I don't know about that," murmured Longbottom. "In any case, all of the staff are surprised that you decided to help Ethan. I am, too. Or, I was, until I thought about it."

After a pause, Longbottom continued. "I did something similar to what you're doing now, when I was your age."

Lily realized what he was referring to. Rose's expression widened in recognition as well.

"Are you talking about when you and our parents broke into the Department of Mysteries yourselves, to save Sirius Black from the Death Eaters?"

"Yes," said Longbottom, his gaze turning down in reminiscence. "We all agreed later on that it was a terrible idea. We were playing right into the Death Eaters' hands. Sirius Black was never in danger, but our recklessness forced him to rescue us, and it got him killed. It was a miracle none of us were killed as well, though Hermione was seriously wounded and easily could have, that day."

Lily should have known. Longbottom was trying to convince them to leave Ethan. And as much as she didn't want to entertain the thought, he did have a point. Her parents did the same thing that they were doing right now, and it was disastrous. How could she expect to do any better?

"But that day was very important for me," said Longbottom. "I managed to survive. Or more accurately, the Death Eaters didn't manage to kill me. I realized that maybe I was more competent than I thought, at least relatively speaking. The mistake we made wasn't facing the Death Eaters on our own. It was going in blind, without any sort of plan or idea what to expect. The mistake the Death Eaters made was that they didn't expect us to put up much of a fight."

Longbottom twiddled his hands as he tried to form his words. "So…the point I'm trying to make is…don't worry about yourselves. Worry about the enemy. In any contest, whether it's a duel, or Quidditch…it's more about outmanoeuvring your opponent than individual skill. I guess one advantage you guys have is that the Knights will have no idea what to expect from you."

"Also, don't go in without a plan. The difference between what your parents and I did and what you're doing is that you have Ethan. Who, if he is who he claims to be, probably knows what he's doing. He was right, when he said the Order's not cut out for this. It didn't occur to me at all that you guys seeing our illegal scrying could be used against us. That way of thinking is built on experience; experience that he has. I guess my advice is...believe in Ethan. And believe in yourselves. Believe in each other. I…I guess that's all I have to say."

Lily, Rose and Torrian stood quietly, digesting Longbottom's advice. Lily felt her spirits lifting from his encouragement. Since her father and him were old friends, Lily knew Longbottom long before she came to Hogwarts; he was like another uncle to her. Though his advice didn't seem very applicable to her – she thought it was something he should be giving Ethan instead – it still meant a lot to her.

"Professor," muttered Rose. "Thank you for the advice. Um…Ethan said you had information that could be useful to us?"

"Oh, yeah," said Longbottom. "Ah, well. It's not much…but I used to use the Room of Requirement for Defence training. Back when your father taught us DADA and when the Death Eaters controlled the school. You can conjure optical illusions within the Room – and you don't need any expertise in illusion magic to create very convincing illusions of anyone or anything you've seen before. Of course, someone who's trained in mana sensing will notice the illusions…but I think it's a tool you can really put to use."

"Time's up, Longbottom," said Ethan as he came up behind them. "So? What's the information?" He asked them.

Rose repeated what Longbottom told them. "Illusions, eh? I'll keep that in mind," said Ethan. "You done yet, Professor? Because we have work to do."

"Sorry, went into a bit of lecture," Longbottom said apologetically. "I'm sorry, Ethan, and all of you, that the Order has made the decision it's made. I wish it hadn't come to this, but I suppose we deserve it. I want you to know that…while most of the Order would prefer that you do little and stay safe until Thursday…some of us are rooting for you to do more and succeed. So good luck, all of you."

Lily beamed at her Head of House. "Thank you, Professor," Rose and Torrian expressed their thanks as well.

Longbottom stood up and left the office.

"All of you, come with me right now," said Ethan, and he brought them back to the scrying assembly. He pointed up to one of the mirrors, which showed Father speaking with someone at the front porch of a modest cottage.

"Any of you know who that is?" asked Ethan.

Rose squinted up at the mirror. "Yes – that's Jeremy: the day shift bartender for the Three Broomsticks."

"Good – can you tell the address?"

Rose took control of the assembly and swivelled the scrying eye around to get a view of the surrounding area. "Yes – it's on a branch off Church Street."

Three Aurors came up the front porch and entered the house past Jeremy; they each carried a Probity Probe, Secrecy Sensor and Foe-Glass respectively. Jeremy made a move to go in after them, but Father barred him with a stretched arm.

"Looks like they're searching his house," remarked Ethan. "So Mr. Potter suspects them as well. Great; saves us the trouble to finding out their addresses ourselves. Rose, conjure some pen and pa – I mean, parchment and quill. And a desk and chair – no, two chairs. And jot down this guy's address,"

Rose followed through with haste, producing an old teacher's desk and two wooden chairs beside the scrying console, then scribbling down the address.

"Lily, Torrian – are you familiar with Hogsmeade as well?" Ethan asked. The two of them nodded.

"Good – Rose, you can go back to testing the evidence. Lily, Torrian, jot down every address the Aurors visit and who they belong to. Leave a scrying eye in front of every address."

As Lily shuffled in front of the console to control it, she spotted Professor Ellery through the window into Ethan's office.

"Ah, she's back," said Ethan. "Rose, come with me for a second."

"Rose is being awfully helpful," muttered Torrian under his breath as they went to the window.

"Well she is the one controlling the Room," Lily replied. She understood why Ethan chose Rose – because she was smarter – but Lily couldn't help wish that she had been given control of the Room instead. It would help her feel a lot more useful than she did now.

After searching Jeremy's home, Father searched the homes of Madeline and Jacintha: the Three Broomsticks' barmaid and cook respectively. Torrian grudgingly wrote down their addresses as Lily described it. It didn't appear that Father and his Aurors found anything in the staff's homes, as they walked away allowing the staff and their families to return inside. Lily recalled overhearing once that the night shift bartender, Tywin, lived in an apartment in Caelorum. She assumed that was probably where her father Disapparated to after searching the other staff's homes.

Lily saw Rose temporarily create a small portal between the Room and Ethan's office, through which Professor Ellery handed to Rose what appeared to be a wide, shallow stone bowl, engraved with ancient runes. Ethan scanned the bowl with his Probity Probe before taking the bowl from Rose. Soon the two of them returned as Ellery left again.

"What is that?" asked Torrian, pointing to the bowl. Upon a closer look Lily saw that it contained a silvery misty liquid, filled to the brim and yet not a drop wandering over the edge. She recognized what it was.

"It is the Hogwarts Pensieve, passed down from Headmaster to Headmaster for the use of storing and studying their own memories," said Ethan, holding the ancient artefact. "McGonagall has loaned it to us so we can view Ellery's memory of her staking out the inn. She's already placed that memory inside."

Lily's father owned a Pensieve as well, though of a plainer metal design, which he regularly poured his memories into like a diary. He kept it in an adamantine safe though, so Lily had never gotten near it herself.

"I thought you were against asking the Order for help," commented Torrian.

"I'm against _giving_ the Order help," Ethan corrected. "Of course, I'll take what's in this memory with a grain of salt." He scanned through the scrying mirrors above them. "Where's Harry Potter now? And the Aurors?"

"Um, they all left," said Lily. She gave a little report of all she witnessed through the mirrors.

"Hmm, one of them lives in Caelorum?" repeated Ethan. "That's out of our reach, sadly, but we can also cross his place off the list," He placed the Pensieve on the old conjured desk and sat in one of the chairs. "Rose, Torrian – back to your stations. Lily, over here please."

Torrian made a face of disapproval, but Lily still sat beside Ethan, staring curiously at the Pensieve's cloudy surface.

"Unfortunately, you need a wand to operate this thing," said Ethan. "So I need your help to examine Ellery's memory. All you have to do is think of a command while contacting the rim of the Pensieve with your wand. Go on then – have it play the last stored memory."

Like she'd seen Rose do several times today, Lily scrunched her brow and focused her thoughts. The cloudy contents of the Pensieve cleared, becoming a view of the Three Broomsticks, from the perspective of a table in a corner of the pub. But the whole memory seemed to have an electric blue tint around the edges.

"Looks like she's wearing Piercing Sight lenses," commented Ethan. "Thankfully."

The pub was quiet, with only one other patron who entered before Ellery: it was old man Bennett, a retired wigmaker who lived in Hogsmeade. Ellery's gaze focused on him for a second, then returned to the table in front of her, keeping the front door of the inn just in the corner of her sight.

"Reverse back to that old man and pause."

Lily recited Ethan's instruction in her head, and the Pensieve obeyed. The memory went backward in time and stopped at Bennett. Ethan dipped the quill on the desk in ink and started to write on the available parchment. _1\. Old man, thin, long straight beard_ , _balding, pockmarks, dark green robe…_ Apparently he was taking notes of his distinguishing features.

"His name is Archibald Bennett," said Lily. "He lives off Smith Street."

"Ah, good," Ethan wrote that down, too. "Tell me if you recognize anyone else. Resume playing the memory. Pause on everyone who enters. Speed up if nothing interesting's happening."

Ellery turned to her left and glanced at the bar, and behind was Jeremy, the day shift bartender, wiping the counter. Lily identified him and Ethan took note of his features as well, above Bennett's entry: _Day bartender: Jeremy, 30s, medium build, brown buzz cut, small face, silver earring, bartender vest._

As the pub filled with patrons, the buzzing sound of activity emanated from the Pensieve's surface. Several pub patrons into the memory, one of them entered the building wearing dark-tinted glasses. When Ellery's gaze focused on him, the glasses melted into the air. A few seconds later, the glasses rematerialized, though the man carried on as if nothing had happened. A few minutes later, a man entered wearing a rather obvious wig, and that temporarily vanished as well, revealing the man's baldness.

 _So that's what Piercing Sight is like,_ thought Lily. She was glad to know that particular magic was heavily controlled, authorized for use by only top-level law enforcement. However, she also started to worry about how much illegal magic Hogwarts was harbouring.

Ellery turned to look at the bar, and her sight pierced through the wall to peer into the kitchen behind it. Jacintha, the cook, was waving her wand over a cauldron, whilst a knife chopped vegetables and a frying pan flipped pancakes by themselves. Ethan wrote on his parchment: _Cook: Jacintha, 30s, stout build, brown braid, wide-set eyes, yellow blouse, grey skirt, white apron._

Later, a woman who earlier came down from the first floor to have breakfast returned up the stairs. Ellery watched her disappear to the first floor; then her Piercing Sight activated, turning the corridor above invisible. The woman, appearing to walk on air, entered what was presumably her guest room. But the door, floor and outer walls of the room glimmered with a blue sheen, as did all other rooms on the first floor; Ellery's gaze lingered on them, yet they remained decidedly opaque.

"Imperturbable Charms," groaned Ethan. "Annoying."

"They're standard for private rooms and the outer walls of most homes," said Lily.

"Still annoying."

Their slow examination of Ellery's memory continued; Ethan included markings in his notes for when the people in the inn entered, left, when they were somewhat disguised, and when they went up or down the stairs to the first floor. It was excruciatingly tedious work, and all Lily did was think 'stop', 'play', 'faster', and 'slower' when appropriate.

After about twenty minutes of staring into the Pensieve, forty-five minutes in the time of the memory, Professor Ellery got up and left the inn to change out of her first disguise. As she did so, Lily glanced over at Ethan to check how he was doing: he moved his writing hand very gingerly over the parchment, and he preferred moving the parchment rather than his arm to begin a new line. Lily never noticed it before because he hid it from his face, but Ethan must have strained an arm or shoulder muscle when he punched Madam Rosmerta.

"Hey, are you okay?" Lily asked him. "Is your arm injured?"

"It's fine," Ethan answered plainly.

"I could heal it," she offered. "It'll only take a minute."

"No, thank you,"

They were only a quarter of the way through Ellery's memory, so Ethan still had at least an hour more of writing. She couldn't just allow him to put himself through such unnecessary pain.

"Where does it hurt?" She pulled her wand away from the Pensieve, returning its contents to silver cloudiness.

Ethan groaned. "I can just take a Healing Potion for it. I have a bottle in my office."

He stood up to leave the desk, but Lily grabbed his upper arm to stop him. He reflexively pulled away like her hand was lava – then bit back a painful growl. Lily let go as he clutched his shoulder, but she was still determined to help him.

"Healing Potions are for severe injuries only. If you take it for any small thing, you're going to get hardened muscles, fused bones, tumours – just let me conduct some physical tests with you to pinpoint your injury. It's the only way to heal you, besides going to the hospital wing."

"Ugh, fine," Ethan grumbled. "I think it's a strain in my shoulder. So what do I do?"

Lily put Ethan through some basic shoulder injury tests. First she gently held his arm and tested his range of motion, then tested how well he could hold his arm up horizontally. Ethan reported pain and difficulty in trying to lift his arm above his shoulder; he also couldn't properly hold his arm up when she applied mild pressure to it.

"It's most likely a small rotator cuff tear. Now I need to home in on the specific tendons that may be hurt."

She conducted four different tests to judge the strength of each of the rotator cuff tendons. Ethan found all of them painful, but was able to pass three of the four.

"Okay, I think only your supraspinatus tendon needs healing. Just hold still and I'll mend it in a jiffy."

After they both returned to their chairs, Lily put the tip of her wand to Ethan's shoulder and concentrated on where she knew the right tendon was. _"Sarcio."_ A green light passed from her wand and pulsed within Ethan's shoulder.

"When did you learn all this?" asked Ethan, looking at her curiously.

"Ah, well…I use Haste Charm a lot in Duelling practice, which can be quite hard on the muscles. So my Dad had to teach me how heal myself."

"Hmm, not bad," remarked Ethan, surprised.

"Yeah, I know. People are always surprised to learn that I know this stuff," Lily said jokingly. In those days, she would usually follow up with the line 'I'm actually smarter than I look!' But that currently felt like an embarrassing boast to make in front of an actual genius.

"That's not what I meant at all," said Ethan. "I was just thinking that wizards know their science better than I thought. There's a surprising amount of overlap in our knowledge. But that is just my fault for assuming there wouldn't be."

"Are you trying to say you _look down_ on wizards?" Torrian, who had apparently overheard, rounded on Ethan. "I can't even imagine how a Muggle can be so arrogant. Your 'science' and 'technology' has nothing on magic."

Ethan smirked at him. "That reminds me, Torrian. Would you mind checking through the windows of the Three Broomsticks, to see if any Aurors or police are still there?"

Torrian turned his head back up to the scrying mirrors, but Lily was quite sure he was still listening to every word of their conversation. She finished up her healing a few seconds later. "There. Can you move your arm now?"

Ethan tried some of the shoulder tests again. "Yup, much better. Thank you, Lily. Alright, back to work." He reached to pick up the quill.

"Woah, wait," Lily stopped him. "You should rest for at least five minutes first."

"Five minutes?" Ethan repeated irritably. "My shoulder feels fine now."

"Just give the magic that long to settle, alright?" She kept her wand and sat back in her chair. Seconds later, she was struck by the terrible awkwardness of silence between them.

"So, what did Longbottom talk to you about?" Ethan asked to pass the time.

Lily recapped Longbottom's advice to Ethan as best as she could remember it, but without referring to the incident with the Death Eaters.

"Hmm. 'Play your opponent' and 'have a plan'. Well, that much is obvious. And 'believe in each other'," Ethan gave a tiny chuckle. "As advice goes, it's not so bad. But he's an ex-Auror, so he knows that this shit is easier said than done,"

"He said that you have experience," muttered Lily. It was hard to believe, but the way Ethan had conducted their 'operation' so far was convincing proof. "Have you…done this before?"

"Yes. But not alone. As in, not without the Marauders."

"The Marauders," Lily echoed. The supposed Muggle vigilante group was as much a mystery to her as the rest of Ethan's past. All she knew were just hints that raised more questions than they answered, and not good questions. She had already decided that she wouldn't let what she didn't know about the past affect what she did know about the present; but it would still be nice if she could learn more about the guy before her who was just so…unbelievable.

"Who exactly _are_ they?" Lily asked.

"Your mother explained that in her article, didn't she? A Muggle vigilante group."

"What did they do?"

"Stuff like what we're doing now," replied Ethan. "Gathering intel on terrorists, mobsters and other villainous folk. Sabotaging them, robbing them, and turning them over to the authorities. All without having to adhere to pesky things like search warrants and human rights. I was the team's designated hacker."

"Were…were you magic-aware?" Lily asked. "Is that how you know about Secrecy Sensors and Occlumency?"

"Yes. We were magic-aware. Before the Revelation, that is. There were a few wizards in the Marauders."

"Wizards?" Torrian interrupted. "Wizards fighting Muggle criminals?"

"With all the advantages that magic confers, you'd think it'd be more common. But yes. We also had a goblin, a centaur, a half-Veela-vampire, not to mention –" Ethan halted and swallowed his words. "– it was a ragtag crew."

"That's…amazing," Lily said breathlessly. She noticed that Rose had pretty much stopped working and was just listening to Ethan while staring at her table. Torrian wasn't paying attention to the scrying mirrors either. "Can you tell us what you guys did – in more detail, like one of your missions?"

Ethan considered it, then shook his head. "No, there's no time for that. Ask me again if I'm still here by Thursday night. But I will say this," he added to Lily's disappointed frown.

"You guys are doing fine so far. Considering what we're up against, you're carrying yourselves a lot better than a lot of grown men that I know. Sure, there were a few – hiccups," He shot a look at Torrian. "But everyone flubs the first mission. I panicked too when I first got tossed into the field."

"Yeah…I'm sorry for what happened back there," Lily apologized glumly. "I just blanked. Sorry."

"Ah, well," Ethan shifted uncomfortably in his wooden chair. "It's all right. I made some mistakes too back there. I should have prioritized examining the building. Oh yes – Torrian, is anyone at the inn?"

Torrian glanced up at one of the mirrors. "The lights on the first floor are lit. And I saw a police officer sitting at the bar."

"So they're still guarding the crime scene. That's annoying. Still can't examine the room the Knights were in."

Lily felt awfully responsible for the loss of that opportunity. There could be vital clues in that room. The more she thought about that moment she let Rosmerta escape, the angrier she felt at her slow, wavering instincts.

"Don't beat yourself up over it," said Ethan, like he had read her mind. "I understand that you all knew Madam Rosmerta for years. Naturally, none of you wanted to hurt her or see her hurt, even if she does support the Knights."

"It feels so surreal," Lily said softly. "It feels surreal to believe that now. Like, I can't believe my own memories now, all the times I spoke with her this year and she seemed the same as always," A creeping realization hit her, of another terrible failing. "I knew her son was in the Enfield camp, but I didn't see her pain at all."

It hit her like a tidal wave over her heart, leaving her insides grossly briny. James was right about her – people loved her, they entertained her company, but in return she was tactless and insensitive. Ethan saw Rosmerta's true feelings in a matter of minutes; Lily was only ever concerned about her own. She was doing that even now.

"In the end, she's still not a bad person," said Torrian. "The Knights probably said they were the only ones who could free him. She only wanted to help her son."

Ethan frowned at him. "It's still no excuse. Just another example of love making people do stupid things." He turned back to Lily.

"If you're upset about what happened, then learn from your mistakes. The better you understand your enemy, the easier it will be to defeat them, and to accept why you have to." He stood up and flexed his back. "Well, this debrief was fun. It's way past five minutes now. Let's get back to work."

Lily and Ethan returned to examining Ellery's memory. Nothing interesting happened for two hours in the memory's time; then a middle-age woman passed by Ellery's table – and Ellery's voice rumbled from the surface of the Pensieve. _'Sleekeazy Potion, perfume, Wrinkle-bye Cream.'_ The voice was different from the general noise and conversation of the inn that the memory also played – it had an echo-ey quality to it.

"Was that…Professor Ellery's thoughts?" Lily asked aloud.

"Yes; she recited what she mana-sensed," replied Ethan, jotting it down. "Only subvocal thoughts show in Pensieves, but it's strange she's been this quiet so far. Either she trimmed this memory before handing it to us, or…she's got a very quiet mind." Ethan pondered at the stone bowl for a moment. "Let's resume."

They continued for about twenty minutes longer, approaching noon in the memory's time. A young adult man in light brown robes entered the inn and immediately went upstairs. As Ellery's gaze tracked him, her thoughts reverberated from the stone bowl.

' _Aging Potion, Eye Recolouring Charm, Manly Scar Charm.'_

"Ah, here we go," Ethan sounded pleased as he took note of the man's features. "This looks like recruit number one."

Ellery used Piercing Sight to watch the man through the floor above. He stopped at the third door on the left – room 103 – glanced left and right furtively, and entered. Ethan put a large star marking next to the man's entry on his parchment.

Three more men entered room 103 in the span of ten minutes. Two of them wore magical disguises like the first, but the last one was a guy who looked barely a year out of Hogwarts. He had a weedy look about him; rake thin, pale, curly red hair and covered in freckles – hardly the image of a burgeoning Dark wizard. For a disguise all he did was pull on a hood and wear tinted glasses; Ellery's Piercing Sight vanished them and revealed his true face and features.

"Only four. Rosmerta said there were five recruits. Ellery must have missed one who entered 103 from one of the guest rooms. At least we got one full face," said Ethan.

It felt eerie, beholding the face of a prospective Knight: someone who _wanted_ to go out to a Muggle city and kill innocent people, whether it was for revenge, some idea about wizard supremacy or any other sick reason. And she hated that he looked so ordinary; with the lanky frame and red hair, he could easily pass off as one of her cousins.

"You can unpause it now, Lily."

"Oh – right."

Five or six minutes later in the memory, the entrance of the inn swung open but no one was at the doorway. Then two figures revealed themselves in front of the door, pulling off cloaks that mirrored the street behind them. They were Ares Graham and Bartholomew Moran.

The pub turned instantly silent. Moran pulled out an Obfuscube just like Ethan's and flicked two switches on it, casting an Anti-Warp and Anti-Taboo Field over the area. He appeared to be wearing a gleaming silver poncho; Ellery centred her sight on Moran and her voice, _'A mithril cloak',_ resounded from the Pensieve.

Moran removed his mithril cloak and handed it over to Graham, who folded it and held it under his arm. The Knight recruiter then spread his arms wide in an open-hearted gesture.

"Gentlemen – and ladies – there is no need to be alarmed," Moran addressed the crowd with an oily smile through his pointed full beard. "Mr. Graham merely has some business to attend to, and I just came here for a drink. There's no need for anything to get…out of hand."

"No one is to leave this place," Graham's commanding voice rumbled over the pub. "Or alert the authorities while I am here."

Lily then received a jolt through her skin; Graham swept his gaze across the room and rested them directly at her – at Ellery. He showed a brief one-sided smile.

' _He sees me. He sees my disguise.'_

Not a soul moved a muscle as Graham ascended the stairs; Moran sauntered over the bar and ordered from the Jeremy the bartender. Lily noted that Madam Rosmerta did not come downstairs before Moran and Graham appeared after all; because she was likely in room 103 with the Knight recruits. Rosmerta's barmaid, Madeline, was nowhere to be seen either.

"Butterbeer, would you kindly. It's been a long day," said Moran. Jeremy grudgingly went to the tap to pour him a mug.

"Huh. He just showed himself at the inn," Ethan scratched his chin, pondering deeply. "Even with Brooks and the alibi, it's a big risk of exposing Rosmerta. For what? A message of boldness? …Or a distraction?"

"What are you thinking?" Lily asked.

"It's nothing. Just continue."

' _I'm no match for him. My strength is long withered,'_ Ellery's thoughts resounded. She pulled a multi-mirror from her robes and wrote a message across its surface. _'Graham here Standby evac'._ That message had to be for Professor Longbottom or Slughorn who were in the Room of Requirement at the time.

Moran received his Butterbeer and took a hearty swig of the golden brew. He turned to the man seated beside him.

"Sir, where are you from?"

The man was dressed in crumpled robes and nursed a glass of Firewhiskey in his hand; he looked ragged, like he hadn't slept at all last night.

"Got nothin' ter say to the likes of yer," the man growled.

"Was it Falmouth? Puddlemere? Tinsworth? From the looks of you, you obviously lost your home last night," said Moran.

The man took a sip of his glass. "What's it to you?"

Moran reached for the inside pocket of his robes and pulled out an entire briefcase. He laid it on the table, unclasped it and opened. It was filled to the brim with gold coin; dozens of columns of it fit neatly inside, more money than Lily had ever seen in one compact space.

The man stared at the coin, then Moran. "What's this?"

"This is ten thousand Galleons. Enough to buy a lot in Caelorum and build a new home on it. Go ahead and scan them; it's not Leprechaun gold."

Moran pushed the briefcase to the man, who pulled out his wand; _'Nummo Authentis'._ He cast a sparkling blue light over the coin, and every coin inside glowed green beneath it. "So it's real," The man grunted.

"And it's yours if you want it. No strings attached," said Moran.

The man bared his teeth at the Knight. "I don't need your charity."

Moran nodded with empathy. "Of course not. You look like kind of guy who doesn't accept handouts. If you want this kind of money, you have to earn it yourself."

Moran took the briefcase and displayed its contents in a slow arc to the whole crowd. "I made this much in one day. Do you want to know how?"

"By robbing Muggles," declared one man at a table.

"That's right," Moran admitted. "Just pocketed a few items from a jewellery store while hitting Manchester a week ago. The only people I stole from were greedy Muggle businesses who plunder the earth and fleece others for shiny stones. Literally anything I do with this money would be a better use of it, don't you think?"

"How much is ten thousand Galleons in USD?" Ethan asked aloud.

Rose answered him from her table. "Umm…I don't know about USD, but it's worth about five hundred thousand pounds right now,"

Lily's eyes popped wide reflexively, and she didn't consider herself a very materialistic girl. Before the Revelation, a Galleon was only worth about five British pounds. It seemed so bizarre now that they were at war with Mugglekind and yet their currency's value against theirs was the highest it has ever been, thanks to the goblins doing business with them.

"Five hundred thousand? That's peanuts," remarked Ethan. "More than plausible to loot that much in a day. Then sell it to a Cabal fence for cash laundered through goblin banks."

But Moran neglected to mention that process as he continued his speech.

"The Knights of Walpurgis are not rats hiding in caves. Each of us brings home more than enough coin to provide for our families. And of course, the Aurors can't catch us, because we have dozens of blind zones spread across the U.K. – safe shelters from the all-seeing eye of the Ministry."

"Tell me, friend, what's your plan right now?" Moran enquired the man beside him. "Going to impose yourself at a relative's place? Stay at a shoddy inn like this? Or live in a tent at Caelorum until the Ministry takes back those towns? How long do you think that will take, if they're even going to do it at all? Instead of waiting for others to save you, why don't you solve your own problem?"

It was not easy to tell through the Pensieve, but the atmosphere in the inn was shifting. Men at tables were discussing with each other, some brooding heavily as they eyed the briefcase of gold. But while some in the crowd started to murmur in agreement, a few others began to boil with anger.

"So you're just thieves and murderers," said one man standing at a corner, loud for all the pub to hear. "No better than gold-plundering wyverns."

"Get out of here before I throw you out meself!" shouted another man.

"Careful there, mate," warned someone at a nearby table. "Unless you want Graham to skewer you with his sword."

"Bet you'd like that, you bawbaggin' wank."

"Hey, none of that in this building!" Jeremy shouted over the bar. He glared at Moran. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You're inciting a row."

Moran stood up from his bar stool. "I'm not going anywhere."

Jeremy started to walk out from behind the bar; he looked like he was about to go through the kitchen and leave out the back door. Moran's wand shot out from inside his sleeve and he fired a Stunning Spell into Jeremy's back. Several people stood up, reaching for their own wands, as Jeremy dropped unconscious behind the bar.

Moran immediately retracted his own wand back into his sleeve. He raised his arms up and wide as a yielding, pacifying gesture.

"Calm down everyone, he's fine. It is unfortunate I had to do that, but I have a right to say my piece without the police crashing down on me." Moran stepped forward from the bar, carrying his briefcase. "Because the Ministry is afraid of what we are. We are the solution!"

He stepped onto a table stool and onto the nearest table. Towering over the room, he displayed the briefcase of gold once again to the crowd.

"This is only one means for you to climb to your feet and reclaim your dignity. But there is one other option," His tone shifted dramatically, and he returned the briefcase inside his robe pocket. "You don't buy a new home; you fight, and claim back the home that was stolen from you!"

Several men raised their glasses and cheered. Several men glared hexes at Moran. The Knight recruiter continued his sermon.

"Who is providing for those that have been devastated by the Muggles?" Moran roared. "Who is taking the fight back to the Muggles? Who do the Muggles fear more than anything? It is _us,_ the Knights of Walpurgis! We are an order ordained by God to lead wizardkind through this war and into a new, greater era!"

Then the door of the inn swung open and in came Lily herself, Rose, Hugo and Torrian. Ellery was shocked, of course, to see them walk in: _'From the Aether! What are they doing here?'_ She quickly sent a message through her multi-mirror to conjure a portal just past the door of the inn. A message returned saying: _'A-W field 5 min to pierce'._ Everything that followed was as Lily remembered, and she didn't need a Pensieve to recall every last detail. The scene devolved into a fight, Graham returned and gave his own speech, and then Ellery stepped in and pulled them out.

The memory ended in darkness as Ellery fell through the conjured portal into the Room of Requirement. Then the mysterious liquid in the Pensieve returned to silvery opaqueness.

Ethan rolled his neck to stretch the stiffness from it. "God, that was tedious. This is why we invented facial recognition software."

A thought occurred to Lily. "Hey, if we know the recruits went upstairs, why did you take notes on everyone?" They could have skipped nearly an hour of eye strain if they had just started backwards and focused on those who went upstairs.

"Because I want to make sure that for everyone who entered the building, their exit is accounted for," said Ethan. "Now we check the scrying footage."

They went back to Torrian at the scrying console. "Anything interesting happen?" asked Ethan.

Torrian had conjured himself a chair and sat staring up at a bunch of mirrors for over an hour. He rolled his neck to face Ethan with an expression of resentful ennui. "Nothing."

"Good. Scoot back a little, I need to use the console. Lily, you take a break – I can handle this myself."

Ethan perused the scrying assembly's user manual for a bit, then engaged the console's dizzyingly confounding interface. He tapped a few buttons, and the scrying mirror watching the front of the Three Broomsticks began to reverse in time, shadows and passers-by flying backwards until it was morning again.

With nothing to do, Lily sat back beside Torrian and watched Ethan cross-reference the scrying footage with his notes from Ellery's memory. As people entered and left the inn, Ethan checked off their entries on his list of descriptions. He went down the list at a quick pace and found no irregularities, confirming that Ellery didn't omit anyone in her memory.

"A flawless memory," Ethan murmured to himself. "I see. So she's a…hmm."

"She a what?" Lily asked for clarification. "What were you saying, Ethan?"

"You don't know?" Ethan looked over at Lily, then Torrian. Ethan's brow rose curiously at Torrian, but when Lily looked over, Torrian's expression was as sullen as it was all day. She thought for a wild second that they might have exchanged some communication at each other.

"Hm. It's nothing. I don't want to throw accusations at people without proof."

The scrying footage reached the point in time when the police Apparated before the inn and went inside. Slowly, the people inside filed out of the building, herded to the street by the police and later escorted to Hogsmeade's police station. Ethan became much more thorough in examining the footage, squinting up at the witnesses' clothing and other visible features and checking them off the list.

"I can't believe this," Torrian lamented aloud. "We should be giving this information to the police, to help them catch the Knights."

"But then the Order would be under arrest for illegal scrying," said Lily.

"And what we're doing right now is obstructing justice."

"You're only guilty if you're caught and convicted," said Ethan, maintaining his concentration on the scrying mirror. "As illuminating as your observations are, Torrian, I'd appreciate it if you could keep the conversation to a minimum. I would hate to make a mistake, and then Lily and I will have to examine this shit all over again."

Ethan took about thirty minutes in total to go through the scrying footage. Once the inn was emptied, Ethan fast-forwarded through the rest of the footage; it showed Madam Rosmerta returning some time later, followed shortly by their own appearance, then her Dad and the Aurors. He reverted the scrying mirror back to displaying its real-time feed.

"Nine people who entered the inn did not leave through the front door," Ethan announced. "Graham, Moran, five aspiring Knights, and two others. They either Disapparated or ran out the back door before the police barged in. Of the two others, one looks in his 20s, the other in his 40s," Ethan pointed to two entries on his list that weren't checked. "Both of them were quite rough in the brawl, and they attacked those who criticized the Knights. Mostly likely they ran because they weren't keen on meeting the police, but maybe they decided then and there to join the Knights. So these are our three leads right now."

"Umm, Ethan," Rose spoke up. "I finished testing the cloak and multi-mirror."

"Perfect timing," said Ethan. "Tell us the results."

Rose stepped aside to give everyone a full view of the table she was working on. It was cluttered close to overflowing with glassware; the burnt cloak hovered in the air above it, spread out like it was hung to dry.

"So, um, I tested the fabric for remnants of an invisibility enchantment, and the test returned positive, so it is definitely an invisibility cloak," Rose spoke a bit nervously like she was giving a class presentation. "Next I learnt this spell – _Invers Revelio_ – that can be used to highlight all foreign material on the cloak."

Rose tapped the cloak with her wand and incanted _'Invers Revelio'_ : a violet cone of light shone from her wand to the cloak, and a great splattering of marks and patterns revealed themselves, glowing blue in the light; the cloak became more blue than violet.

Rose pointed first to the multitude of fingerprints polka-dotted all over the cloak, mostly along the top edge around the fastening clasp. "I'm not entirely sure, because it's so messy, but I think there's three different sets of fingerprints left by three people," She circled her wand over a bunch of mostly partial prints in the middle. "These partial prints match some whole prints that I lifted from Madam Rosmerta's multi-mirror, so I think it's safe to say that these belong to Madam Rosmerta, from when she bunched up the cloak and burnt it on the stove."

She pointed to a set of prints near the top edge. "These prints belong to a larger hand – if you see how spaced apart they are. I think they belong to Ares Graham." She then pointed to a pair of four fingerprints along the left side of the cloak. "And these prints I think belong to a third person who held the cloak with both hands, but I don't know who."

"Good work," said Ethan.

Rose looked surprised. "Really? You don't think I made a mistake somewhere? I don't know anything about fingerprint analysis,"

"Neither do I. But your analysis looks good as far as I can tell. Tell me about those blots."

"Oh, yes." Rose waved her wand over numerous spots and smears all over the cloak. "This is all blood. Different types of blood. I had to brew seven different Blood Test potions to find out what some of them were."

That sounded ominous to Lily. Rose pointed to a massive splotch in the middle that ran down to the bottom of the cloak.

"This…I think it's Graham's blood. I got a partial positive when I tested for human DNA. The DNA is also part feline and arachnid, which makes me think it's Graham's because it fits the rumours that he's a manticore Animagus."

Rose pointed to the very middle of the splotch. "There's sewing in the middle here, suggesting that something pierced through," Rose swiped with her wand and the cloak turned around to its inner side. The same large splotch glowed on the cloak. "The blood is less than a day old. I think about twelve to eighteen hours old. Graham was injured by something recently."

"Something that gored him in the back while he was wearing the invisibility cloak," said Torrian.

"Any clue?" Ethan asked Rose.

"Um…maybe," Rose turned the cloak back around and pointed to a tiny spray of spots around the cloak's right shoulder. "This blood is from a Bugbear, but it's a few days old. This blood is from an Acromantula." She pointed to a different spot. "It's more recent but I don't know for sure if they can make piercing wounds like this. There's traces of its silk and venom here as well. And these drips of blood come from two different Forest Trolls, about two days dry. Also, with a microscope, I found tiny fragments of splinters from Whomping Willows and Treants; it's possible they stabbed him, too. And lastly, there's dirt around the bottom here, and it's incredibly rich in residual mana from decayed magical organic matter."

"So…um," Worry cracked into Rose's voice. "I think, from all this evidence…that Ares Graham has been venturing into the Forbidden Forest. No other magical forest in Britain has this combination of magical creatures in it. And he's been doing it for at least a few days,"

Lily was terrified twice over to contemplate it. To encounter beasts like Bugbears and Forest Trolls one had to go well into depths of the Forbidden Forest, and for the aforementioned reasons it was one of the most dangerous places on the planet. And Ares Graham was going in there multiple times and surviving.

"Why is he doing it? Anyone?" Ethan asked, looking mainly at Rose, who shook her head. "Is he foraging for rare potion ingredients or something?"

"Umm, if it's controlled substances, he could just buy them from the Cabal," said Rose. "I don't see why he would need to fight through the Forest to find them himself."

"Is he trying to get into Hogwarts from the Forbidden Forest?"

"I don't think so," Rose replied. "The walls around Hogwarts also cut through the Forbidden Forest – only a small portion of the Forest is inside Hogwarts. The walls are not any easier to break inside the Forest than they are outside. It should be harder, in fact, because of the dangerous creatures. Only the centaurs of the Forest can pass through the walls."

"Centaurs?" Ethan raised a brow. "There are centaurs in the Forest? And what do you mean they can 'pass through the walls'?"

"The walls are enchanted inside the Forest are enchanted to allow centaurs to pass straight through them," Rose explained. "But only centaurs of the herd that lives in the Forbidden Forest. It was part of an agreement made centuries ago with the Founders, because the centaurs believed the Forest belonged to them."

"Hmm. Interesting," Ethan muttered under his breath, hand on his chin. "But you say the bulk of the Forest is outside the school walls. So can you access the Forest through Hogsmeade?"

"You used to be able to, but not since the village barrier was put up."

"Hmm," Ethan assumed another position of deep thought, holding his forehead with thumb and forefinger. "The plot thickens. But we have to shelve that for now. Tell me what you found on the multi-mirror."

Rose's expression fell slightly. "Oh, yes. I didn't find anything, unfortunately. Only Madam Rosmerta's fingerprints and those of another person, who I assume is you."

"Never assume anything," Ethan stepped up to the table and gave Rose a sample of his fingerprints with a conjured sheet of parchment and ink. She compared it to the prints on the multi-mirror and confirmed they belonged to him.

"Can you tell who the contacts are?" Ethan asked, gesturing to the buttons on the side of the multi-mirror.

"No. But I know this is Madam Rosmerta's work multi-mirror," said Rose. "I've seen her use it. These four contacts should be the four staff of the inn. Umm…do you think one of them will try to call?" She broached.

"Not likely. And we won't answer if someone does call. Not yet. I haven't thought of what to say yet."

"What do you mean?"

"The staff were either in on Rosmerta's role with the Knights or they weren't. If they are, then Rosmerta has likely warned them by now that I have her mirror, and they know not to call me or answer my calls. If they aren't with the Knights, then they should have heard by now that Rosmerta's on the run from the Aurors. They would believe that either Rosmerta or the Aurors have her mirror, and it's a toss-up if they will make or answer any calls. It's been two hours and nothing has happened; I say it doesn't reflect well on Rosmerta's staff. At some point I will send them a message – but it has to be at the right moment to flush them out."

"Oh, I see," Rose said, nodding like Lily had seen her do to a professor's explanation. "I understand now."

"Anyway – well done, Rose," said Ethan. "Turns out you're a natural detective."

"Oh. Um. Thanks,"

Lily didn't think she had ever heard Ethan compliment someone before. Did he ever compliment Lily when they were brewing Potions together? She combed through her memory; he must have, or somewhat implied it. So it wasn't a breaking development, Ethan complimenting Rose. She definitely deserved it, of course. It just sounded weird to Lily – that was all.

A light knocking came from the window to Ethan's office, but Lily couldn't tell who was behind it from her vantage point.

"Ah, it's about time," said Ethan. "Come on, everyone – that should be McGonagall."

It was, in fact, Headmistress McGonagall, squatting slightly to view through the glass. She sat down in a cushioned high stool as they came up to her. She produced a scroll of parchment from her robe pocket.

"Ethan. I have received your requests as you relayed to Professor Ellery. As you requested, here is the list of all displaced persons who have come to stay at Hogwarts, in the order that they entered our gates. You can find footage of them stored in the scrying assembly."

"Very good. Rose, would you kindly hand me that list?" said Ethan.

Rose conjured a portal through which she took the scroll from McGonagall; as Lily saw him do with the Pensieve, Ethan scanned it with his Probity Probe before touching the scroll himself.

"So, can it be done?" Ethan said to McGonagall as he skimmed down the parchment.

McGonagall nodded. "Yes. As you suggested, we shall host a village hall meeting for Hogsmeade, at Hogwarts in the Great Hall,"

This was the first Lily was hearing of this development. "What? A village hall meeting? Here?" She had never heard of the school hosting such a thing before. The Hogsmeade residents usually held their village meetings in the middle of the square, if she recalled correctly.

"Tonight?" asked Ethan.

"Yes. At six-thirty this evening. And we have extended an invitation to both the residents of Hogsmeade as well as all displaced persons from the recent Muggle attacks. It is quite short notice, but I'm confident that most of them will be attending."

Ethan read the confusion on Lily's face and explained the rationale. "There's no better place to question our suspects and witnesses than in our own territory. We can set the environment, use the Room on them, and our movements won't be monitored by the Oculus. First, they'll have the village hall; everyone discussing the attacks and how to handle the refugee problem. Then they'll have a nice little reception, which is when we'll move in and have a totally-incidental chat with our suspects."

"Can the house-elves handle the reception? It's going to be a lot of guests." said Ethan.

"They are up to the task," McGonagall nodded. "On that note, if you need people who can approach and speak to your suspects, a few of the professors are willing to lend their assistance – on your orders."

"No thank you, I have my own operatives. That reminds me – I would appreciate it if none of your Order of the Phoenix followed us around during the village hall meeting. We don't need you 'keeping an eye' on us – it just gives me another thing to worry about while trying to do the impossible."

"I don't know if I can promise that, Ethan. Even if I were to inform my staff to give you a wide berth, some may still take it upon themselves to do what they believe is right."

Ethan scoffed. "Yeah, right. If you or any of them want to interfere, don't expect me to show any mercy."

There came the sound of someone banging loudly on the door to Ethan's office. Lily heard some muffled yelling, but couldn't make out the words.

"That is Mr. James Potter at the door," stated McGonagall. "Mr. Hugo Weasley, Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Lascelles are also with him seeking an audience with you, Ethan."

Classes were over already? Lily checked her watch to confirm that it was just past four o'clock.

Ethan blew an annoyed sigh. "Ugh, fine. Rose, could you make a door here for me? Don't try anything, McGonagall – remember if anything happens to me, the Order goes down as well. The rest of you stay here."

A wooden door carved itself out of the wall beside the window, and Ethan went through. With McGonagall following behind, they both stepped out of sight and answered the banging door.

"Where are they, you Muggle – Headmistress McGonagall," James' voice dropped from furious to tamely confused. "W-What are you doing here?"

"I was just discussing some faculty issues with Professor Chen," McGonagall answered serenely. "I presume you have some business with him as well?"

"Y-Yes. Where are Lily, Torrian and Rose?" James' tone regained some toughness upon directing himself at Ethan. "No one has seen them all afternoon."

Torrian stepped forward to enter the office, but Lily stretched an arm out to stop him. As much as she wanted to end the worries of the others outside, she knew it was a terrible idea to let James find out what they were up to.

"Huh. Is that so," Ethan uttered disinterestedly. "Have you asked any of the professors?"

"They said they have no idea," said James. "Madam Longbottom said they were treated for shock after – the incident at the Three Broomsticks. Then she didn't know where they left to."

"Uh-huh. And why do you think I would know any more than the staff?"

Lily imagined that James' face was reddening in the pause that followed. "Because you've been responsible for every crazy stunt that's happened in this school since you arrived."

"Really?" Ethan said with affected indignation. "Me alone, responsible? I don't think that's fair. What do you think? Hugo, Scorpius, Iris?" He punctuated their names with a note of implication.

"…Don't change the subject," muttered Iris with an offhanded huff. "Where's Rose, and Lily and Torrian? Do you know where they are or not?"

"You heard about what happened right? Then it should be obvious that they're at the police station right now, giving their witness statements to the police."

"But Professor Ellery and I came back from giving my statement two hours ago," said Hugo, with only pure concern in his voice. "And we didn't see them."

"Then you just missed each other," said Ethan. "Isn't that right, Headmistress?"

"That is correct," stated McGonagall. "I personally escorted Miss Weasley, Miss Potter and Mr Fraser to the school gates after their treatment at the hospital wing. I'm sure they'll be back from the police station very soon."

"There you have it," said Ethan. "Anything else to discuss?"

"Let's go, James," came Scorpius' calm, even voice. "They've told us everything they know. Goodbye, Headmistress."

Lily heard the others bid McGonagall goodbye and leave down the hallway. The door shut after them.

"If you continue to enlist the aid of…your friends, I'm afraid you'll likely have to confront James again eventually," said McGonagall.

Ethan held a peculiar pause before replying. "I don't have friends," he said curtly. "You can go now, McGonagall. Get this show ready."

The crack of Disapparition signified McGonagall's exit, and Ethan returned to the Room.

"Well everyone, good job this afternoon," He spoke with the air of a professor wrapping up a class. "You can leave for now."

The idea was so sudden that his simple words turned weird to Lily's hearing. "…Leave?"

"Yes. You guys have to go back to your dorms and regale your friends with the tale of the bar fight at the Three Broomsticks, which I'm sure everyone has heard of by now. Make sure that dear James knows you're safe and sound. If he hears any hint of what's happening here, very likely he's going to call Harry Potter and that's game over for all of us, including the Order."

"Next point: don't wander into any empty room or corridors; the Order might grab you and try to stop you from helping me again. On that note, be wary of all staff that comes near you – stay away from them entirely if possible."

It stung to have to think in such a way, to have sneak around in daylight and distrust people she was supposed to know. But Lily recognized that this was her world now – the world Ethan was experienced in: the world of a criminal. Which, what with perverting the course of justice, she was now.

"Naturally, don't tell anyone about the Order's deal with the Muggle government, or what we're doing, have done or going to do. Do whatever you like until dinnertime, though returning here would be safest. Have dinner early and return here by six o'clock. That is, if you still want to help me by then."

"What will you do?" asked Rose.

"I will be here, looking through the scrying assembly's stored footage. Checking the faces of refugees who entered Hogwarts against those who were at the inn, and the list McGonagall gave me. I'll also look for suspicious activity from this morning and earlier, if the Order bothered to point their scrying eyes in the right places. Rose, I want you to do one more thing for me first: can you absorb my office into this Room, and ward the door so that only I can open it?"

Rose didn't scrunch her brows in concentration, yet the walls began to rumble; it appeared that she was starting to get comfortable with commanding the Room's incredible powers. The wall dividing the Room and Ethan's office sunk into the floor, and the wards protecting the Room shimmered anew over the whole interior, which was now half office-cum-living quarters and half surveillance-cum-operations base.

"Very good," said Ethan. "I suggest you guys use the time to take a power nap and whatever you like to do to relax, if you still want to follow me down this hole. It's not getting any easier or prettier from here. This mission is not over – far from it. Hell, we're not halfway through the first day yet."


End file.
